


Feints and Deceptions

by antigrav_vector



Series: Like trying to stop an avalanche [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Clint Barton/James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Hydra, Hydra (Marvel), Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Angst, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, Multi, Natasha Romanov/Clint Barton - Freeform, Natasha Romanov/James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, Natasha Romanov/Steve Rogers - Freeform, OT6, Open Relationships, Past Steve Rogers/ Margaret "Peggy" Carter, Poly Relationships, Rescue Missions, Steve Rogers/Clint Barton - Freeform, Tony Stark/Clint Barton - Freeform, Tony Stark/James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, Tony Stark/Natasha Romanov - Freeform, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers - Freeform, Virginia "Pepper" Potts/Clint Barton - Freeform, Virginia "Pepper" Potts/James "Bucky" Barnes - Freeform, Virginia "Pepper" Potts/Natasha Romanov, Virginia "Pepper" Potts/Steve Rogers, Virginia "Pepper" Potts/Tony Stark - Freeform, far more plot than intended, lots of mission fic, steve rogers/james "bucky" barnes - Freeform, tons of background or implied pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-27 21:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6301456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their missions have suddenly started going sideways, and that was bad enough, but then things got exponentially worse: one of the team got captured during a mission. </p><p>Now they have to find a way to get him back... if they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to my beta [lil_1337](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lil_1337).
> 
> As in other long!fics the footnotes are clickable, and contain links back to the main text.
> 
> This fic picks up immediately after its prequel, and may not make sense without reading the rest of the series, since this has gone fully AU, now.

The next morning, Bucky stirred first and stretched slowly, careful not to disturb Pepper, plastered to his left side and cuddling his arm, or Tony, sprawled on his stomach with an arm tossed over Bucky's waist, seeing as he'd ended up in the middle. It woke Tony in time to see the lazy well-fucked smile that Bucky had on his face for all that his eyes were still closed.

Said smile faded with the end of the stretch and his eyes opened. Pepper's stayed shut, and she tucked herself closer to Bucky's side. She got an affectionate smirk, but Bucky gently peeled himself free, encouraging her to latch onto Tony instead, then stood, padding toward the door. At oh-dark-thirty. On a Sunday.

His eyes met Tony's and he nodded before he left the room. Just before the door shut behind Bucky, Tony could hear Steve's voice out in the hallway. It was too early for sane people to be awake, though. Grumbling, he turned to pull Pepper closer, tucking her against his chest, and settled back in to catch some more sleep. Let those two go be awake. He didn't have to.

He woke again when Pepper groggily sat up, and his side was suddenly cold. A quick query of Extremis revealed that it was 07:04, and that Steve and Bucky were cooking breakfast on the common floor. Giving in and accepting that he wasn't going to get to sleep in, Tony grumbled under his breath and stretched. Taking a deep breath and sitting up to give Pepper a kiss, he indulged in running his hands all over her. Reveling in the feeling of her smooth skin, warm under his fingers.

She huffed at him, amused, and settled happily against him. "Mmm, 'morning."

"Breakfast?" Complex sentences weren't happening until after he'd had his coffee.

"Come on." Pepper's hand went around his wrist and tugged gently. "Get dressed."

They walked out of the room together some five minutes or so later, presentable, and made their way down the four floors to the common area. The others were already there, including Thor and Bruce, arranged somewhat haphazardly around the long table Tony had been forced to invest in after their remaining two team members had returned to the Tower.

Coulson was also present, having managed to show up between Tony's glance through the cameras and entrance in the room. It made him scowl. Agent kept fucking with the Tower's security systems, and it really irritated Tony. Granted, that was probably why Agent continued doing it, but still.

The conversation paused for a moment when they showed up, then flowed around them once greetings had been exchanged.

Coulson shrewdly waited until Tony had gotten a first coffee in him before he started talking about serious things. "Listen up," he opened. "The Director has an assignment for the team."

Tony raised an eyebrow at him, but kept quiet for the moment.

Steve made a 'go on' gesture. "What mission?" he prompted.

"There are reports that some of the unaccounted for Chitauri tech has resurfaced," Coulson replied, politely ignoring that Pepper was in the room and technically not cleared to hear any of this. He knew quite well that she would hear everything from Tony or Natasha within minutes anyway, and chose to accept the status quo rather than fight it. "SHIELD's analysts have tracked the tech to the Sino-Russian border region, between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Beyond that, the intel we have is limited." Coulson looked irritated. "Estimated number of troops is between fifty and one hundred. No information on weaponry, suggested approaches, or potential reinforcements."

"I don't know what Fury thinks we'll be able to accomplish with that," Clint commented, tone dry.

"We really don't need the whole team for this," Bruce nodded. It made his glasses slip down his nose a fraction. He pushed them back up absently.

"Perhaps the Director believes the threat to be far more doughty than it appears," Thor disagreed. Tony was going to tentatively side with him on this.

"With this little intel we really can't assume anything." Natasha put in, and that was... no. That was a bad sign that made even Tony take a step back and re-evaluate.

Coulson carefully said nothing, maintaining his neutral mein.

Bucky sent Steve a Look and shook his head. "I don't like it."

Steve didn't say anything for a beat. "I agree, but we can't ignore it."

Tony shrugged and crossed the kitchen to the coffee maker for another round, pouring two mugs full and handing one to Pepper. "So what do we know," he asked. "J, did you get satellite images to crosscheck SHIELD's?"

"I did, sir," the AI replied, and a map popped up on the holographic interface Tony had built into the coffee table. "The site appears to be another decommissioned military base, much like Camp Lehigh. It is, however, a facility built by the Russian Federation during the Cold War, and as mentioned, located in a contested area near the confluence of the Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, and Kazakh borders[1]. While the area was under the control of the Russian Federation, it served as a training ground for future Spetsnaz companies[2]."

Tony sipped at his coffee. "So SHIELD has some circumstantial evidence that someone is doing research there, based on some of the Chitauri tech that was never quite accounted for."

Bruce added, "it's not a lot to go on. Some very noisy spectrometer readings and the accompanying energy readings. There are some possible spikes, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible."

Tony nodded. "Can we clean it up, JARVIS?"

"No, sir," came the predictable reply. "I have attempted to do so, but any data is lost alongside the filtered noise."

"Typical." Tony sat down next to Natasha and leaned against her. Her arm went around his waist as he pulled a bowl of fruit closer and started nibbling at it. "So, Cap," he turned to their _de facto_ leader, "what's the play? We're being sent into what might as well be an active war zone."

Steve made an unhappy noise, but turned to Coulson and nodded. "We investigate. It feels like a waste of time and resources, but I also don't like the idea of just letting it slide." He looked at his best friend, a lopsided half-smirk tugging at his features. "Buck," he asked, "Are you okay with holding down the fort with Dr. Banner?"

It made good strategic sense: a long and a close range fighter worked well paired off, and Bucky got along with Dr. Banner quite well. Tony knew Bucky had never worked with the Hulk, though, and that was the biggest weak point of the pairing. Steve was betting heavily that nothing would happen here. Tony agreed, but it was a thing to keep in mind.

The request sent a mulish look across Bucky's face. "Not really, but I'll cope. Until I'm properly equipped, I'm not much use to a team that already has a sniper." Bucky caught Tony's eyes. "Keep the asshole in one piece," he grumbled.

Coulson allowed traces of his amusement to show and replied for Tony. "We will."

\------

The mission had turned out to be the milk run they'd expected it to be, and nothing much of interest came up. The base was empty except for a couple of squads of guards. Not even enough for a skeleton crew, really. The Chitauri tech SHIELD had claimed would be here, however, was nowhere to be found. Even the supposed armed conflict in the region hadn't affected them whatsoever.

It was a disappointment on pretty much all counts, and left Tony wondering whether there had even been Chitauri tech here in the first place, or it had been moved before the team had shown up.

They had their objectives wrapped up and were on their way back to New York in under an hour.

The team had split into two groups: one to secure the base itself, made up of Steve, Clint, and Natasha, while Tony and Thor split off to find the tech.

It took under ten minutes for the trio outside to have things under control. The majority of the base's staff didn't even put up a fight, surprisingly. One of them had even made a comment under his breath about not being paid enough for this, and was overheard by Steve.

All of them were gathered up by SHIELD transports almost immediately. Coulson being as prompt as ever with his idea of backup.

It took Tony and Thor another forty minutes to confirm that there was indeed no Chitauri tech on site.

The ten hour flight in either direction had turned out to be the most difficult part of the mission. Tony'd had to work to keep down the temptation blurt out an invitation to the Mile High Club.

The debriefing they'd gone through once they'd gotten back to New York had been about as tedious as expected, and Tony had literally slept through about an hour of it before Natasha had nudged him awake for what she deemed the important part.

\------

Four days later, they got another similar assignment. Once again, the base was located in the middle of nowhere. This time, though, it was near the base of the Ural Mountains, near Kytlym[3]. SHIELD suspected that the missing Chitauri tech they'd thought was in China had made its way there.

How, Tony was at a loss to explain. There was no single faction or splinter group that he knew of with ties to both regions. Except perhaps the Red Room.

He could tell that Natasha was thinking along similar lines, judging by the tightness at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

"I don't like this, Cap," Clint grumbled. "Another milk run mission, and it sounds identical to the last one."

Tony snorted. "Seriously. It's like they copy-pasted the mission briefing and changed the location."

Thor nodded, but said nothing.

Dr. Banner, looking like he was a little on edge, took off his glasses and polished them with a corner of his shirt. "Same plan as last time," he asked.

After the last mission, Steve had made sure that Bucky and Hulk got properly acquainted. Everyone had been in favor, except the two involved. Bucky had looked at Bruce rather warily. _'No offense,'_ he'd said, _'but your alter ego makes me very nervous.'_ That had been enough to break the tension, though. Bruce had chuckled, and the rest of them had relaxed. _'I know what you mean,'_ Banner had replied, _'but he listens to Tony and Cap.'_

The introduction had gone better than they'd hoped, after that, with Hulk essentially treating Bucky like he did Clint: as though he was a life-sized action figure. When Hulk had picked Bucky up the first time, Bucky had tensed, hard, unsure of what to do, but Hulk had paid no attention to the reaction and simply plopped the sniper down on his shoulders, like a parent with a toddler. It had taken Bucky a few seconds to adjust to the idea, but when Hulk had started smoothly bounding around the reinforced room without so much as jarring him, Bucky had whooped gleefully, and that had been that. Hulk hadn't really wanted to give him up, at the end of the exercise either, and Bucky had had to (very reluctantly) pretend his legs were sore to get his feet back on the floor.

Steve had spent the afternoon smirking smugly at both of them.

Then, two days later, the briefing notes from SHIELD had turned up. Coulson had turned up with them, and proceeded to very efficiently lay out the mission parameters. He'd given Tony a hard look throughout the briefing itself, as though trying to figure out why nothing had blown up recently. Tony had made a note to do just that; blowing something up sounded like just the thing to help settle his current restlessness, actually. The base they were being assigned to reconnoiter would make a satisfying boom, if he could pull it off.

And so here they were, rehashing the same discussion they'd had before the last mission. Tony rolled his eyes. "Look, guys," he put in. "We've got to go check it out, one way or another," he paused to look at all of them in turn, and got a nod each from Steve and Natasha. "So we might as well gear up for the worst case scenario and just hit 'em before they know we're there."

Thor spoke up, then, breaking his silence. "Your words have merit, Man of Iron."

Coulson nodded. "We can have a backup team ready," he said, "but they won't be much help if there is Chitauri tech on site."

"Think you could swing us a few F-35s," Tony asked, tone almost joking. He knew Fury was very likely to veto that plan.

Steve nodded, though, apparently liking the idea. "It might be good to have one or two in reserve with the backup, if possible," he suggested, lending his weight to the idea.

"I'll see what I can do. The Director prefers to use them sparingly." With a last look around the room and a nod, Coulson was gone.

This time, the flight was slightly shorter, at least.

They saw significantly more activity on their approach, as well. Clint began narrating as they reached the one-and-a-half-mile perimeter beyond which their LZ[4] lay. "Alright, guys," he said, "we've got the same layout as the last base, visually confirmed, now. Looks like about company strength. I'd estimate 200 men[5]."

Tony scoffed. "Please. Like I wouldn't have noticed them altering the satellite data. That came off my systems, not Google's."

Clint audibly rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Get your game face on, buddy," he shot back, "'cause it looks like we'll have a bit more company to tango with this time around."

Natasha smirked. "Nothing we can't handle."

Thor nodded, a fierce glee in his tone. "Aye, we have faced many a harder challenge and succeeded. Come, my friends!"

"Hold back!" Steve's commanding tones cut across the banter. "Let's not give away the element of surprise just because we got confident. It's much more fun when you can see them realise they've already lost."

Thor laughed. "A fair point, Captain."

The fight itself was almost disappointing, despite their enjoyment of the looks of stunned surprise and fear they got. It was over in about half an hour, and at the end of it Tony found himself looking around for the next target automatically and not finding one.

When he refocused, glancing around the courtyard, he spotted Natasha also looking around the open area, now strewn with groaning goons mixed in with the unconscious ones, an odd expression on her face. "Cap," she announced, "I'm taking Iron Man and running recon of the base. We'd better find that tech."

Steve nodded. "We'll call this in, meantime, and get someone to pick up these guys."

"I do not believe we will find anything here," Thor rumbled. "This has the feel of another feint."

As Tony took off with Natasha clinging to him and headed for the complex on the southern side of the large open courtyard, Clint slapped Thor on the shoulder. "Let's hope they find a clue, at least."

Steve shook his head. "Come on. Hawkeye, call it in, would you? Thor and I will start securing the conscious ones."

An hour later, Tony was still trawling through the computer systems. Natasha had watched him work for a few minutes, then split off to go physically check the building. She'd returned some forty-five minutes later, looking resigned. He, on the other hand, had been ready to repulsor the computer in front of him in raw frustration. It had been wiped clean. Very thoroughly. And wasn't connected to any kind of network that he could detect. Every last terminal he'd tried so far had been like that.

Not even Extremis could help him coax anything out of them.

Honestly. Not even brand new computers were this clean. There wasn't even any bloatware on these, just a very bare bones operating system designed to run data acquisition software. The kind that was used in electronics labs all over the world. And that combination of factoids was more than enough to ring metaphorical alarm bells, as far as he was concerned.

"Iron Man," Steve's voice came over the team comm line, "you got anything for us?"

Tony growled. "No. Whoever's in charge of their system security is good. There's nothing here."

"There's no sign of the tech we came here for, either," Natasha added.

"Damn it," Steve growled.

Tony felt a humourless smirk tug at his lips for a moment. He was frustrated, and, from the sound of things, Steve felt the same.

"Right," Steve continued after a beat. "We'd better wrap this up and get out, then. SHIELD's dealing with the goons. We're done here."

"Aye aye, captain," Tony quipped, then gave in and repulsored the computer monitor in a fit of pique.

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. Tony was glad of that as he offered her his arm and flew them neatly back out of the building through a conveniently blasted out window. Rather than fly back with the jet, Tony set Natasha down and took back off immediately, letting the armour fling him up into the endless blue of the sky.

"Iron Man! Where are you going!" Over the comm, he heard Steve call after him, and Natasha stop Steve from sending Thor after him.

"He needs some time to cool off," was all she said. "He won't be gone long."

He could feel the reluctance in Steve's acquiescence, but it was acceptance of Natasha's advice nonetheless. "If he's not back in time for the debrief, I intend to track him down," Steve grumbled, clearly meant for Tony to hear.

Tony huffed, amused. Like Cap could find him if he didn't want to be found. All he had to do was find an isolated spot in the arctic and hide under the ice floes.

What he _wanted_ right now, though, was answers.

Tony spent the three hours he gained from not flying with the quinjet alternately taking advantage of the rush flying always gave him to stop himself from thinking, and worrying at the sheer amount of nothing they'd found. Not even JARVIS and his encyclopaedic knowledge of code and the internet had been able to help Tony with this one, and that was... that was a level of technical know how he hadn't expected from their opponents.

What the flying fuck had been on those computers that their owners had felt the need to erase to thoroughly? And how had they pulled that off with all the computers were isolated terminals, meant for nothing more than data acquisition? A wipe was far more efficient and quick when you could initiate it from somewhere else on a network. As it was, the owners would have had to individually go to each terminal and manually start the wipe on each one, and then manually check each terminal to ensure that the wipe succeeded.

It also took time to pull off, and that meant somehow someone had known they were coming. Or had one hell of a hunch.

They were up against someone good, and that was potentially a _problem_.

After coming to that conclusion, Tony growled wordlessly under his breath and took off like a shot, sending himself into the most extreme maneuvers he could, throwing himself into a lateral roll and then immediately following it with a high speed yo-yo[6] and a high speed barrel roll[7], climbing and diving and pushing himself to his limits, watching the G counter with a fraction of his attention as he did. He'd managed to pull off 21.4 Gs before without passing out, and he needed something fun to counterbalance the implications of this clusterfuck of a mission. Trying to break that record was the perfect way to do it. JARVIS would catch him, in the worst case. He knew what to do.

\------

The debriefing was as boring and tedious as he'd expected, and Tony resented almost every moment of it.

This wasn't helping them solve anything. All it did was point out how few answers they had to all of their SHIELD contacts, and anyone listening in or recording this. Tony had no doubt that was happening, even if Steve still didn't want to believe it on some level.

It was a hell of a relief to get out of that meeting room and building. 

Bucky and Bruce were waiting for them in the common area when they tiredly filed out of the elevator. Both of them looked up the moment the elevator doors slid open, and Tony suspected they'd asked JARVIS to keep them informed of the team's arrival.

Bucky was on his feet immediately, and hurrying over and stopping in front of Natasha. "What happened?"

Thor made an irritated rumbling sound that wasn't _quite_ a growl, but came damn close. "Our opponents anticipated our arrival."

Steve made a face. "They had enough warning to get out of there with all of the important materiel and intel. All we got was a company's worth of goons."

Bucky scowled. "Again? That's not a good sign for SHIELD's data security."

Tony scoffed. "They've never had much security to speak of, but you're right. It might be time for us to play our cards closer to our chests."

Clint groaned tiredly and pushed past Bucky to let himself flop down face first on the sofa. "What, you mean not tell SHIELD about our next mission? That'll go down _real_ well, let me tell you. Pretty sure Hill would blow a gasket, and Fury wouldn't be far behind."

Steve huffed. "Well, we seem to have lost the element of surprise by relying on SHIELD for briefings and intel. Once is chance, and twice might be coincidence, but I'm inclined not to wait for the third strike."

Bruce looked at him, a thoughtful expression on his face. He turned to Tony. "Hey, what kind of instrumentation do you have on those satellites of yours, exactly?"

Tony grinned broadly. "Plenty. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, remember how we tracked down Loki and his mind control stick? Bet you we could do the same with this Chitauri tech. If it's even out there."

"Hah! Now that's the first good plan I've heard in more than a few hours. Let's do it. Come into my parlor," he invited, gesturing broadly. 

Natasha nodded, her approval clear. "Let us know when you have the trace running."

Clint just gave them a thumbs up from his position on the sofa and didn't budge.

Thor watched as he and Bruce turned and made for the still-open elevator car. "Once you have a location, I believe I can investigate without arousing their suspicions."

"Sounds like a solid plan," Steve agreed. "We'll reconvene for food in three hours, and plan in more detail then."

The time passed quickly, eaten in voracious bites by a discussion of the technical specifications of Tony's satellites and working out how to do the data processing at a reasonable speed, since the signal strength was so low as to require a very slow scan of the ground. In order to quickly find the tech they were looking for, they would need sophisticated noise filtering protocols and very sensitive instruments. Not to mention, a well thought out piece of code to automate the satellites' search patterns so that they could cover ground efficiently. And, on top of that, the significance threshold for determining whether they were seeing signal or noise would have to be chosen wisely.

It took the two of them almost the entirety of the three hours they'd been given just to get the rough outline of their search network hammered out. Before Tony could move on to the implementation portion of the workload, Natasha entered the workshop, somehow managing to walk almost silently despite her customary heels.

"Tony," she prompted, getting a distracted hum in response. "We ordered food; it's time to take a break."

She'd done this often enough, since they'd gotten together, that he automatically saved everything and shut down the interface, well aware that she would simply ask JARVIS to do so otherwise. She had no qualms about locking him out of his workstation for a few hours if he resisted.

Bruce gave him an amused look, but said nothing. That was probably smart on his part, Tony thought with a smirk. Any comment would only rub both of them the wrong way. Not that they would do anything about it. Abandoning those thoughts, Tony reached out to pull Natasha against his side and bury his nose in the hair behind her ear. She normally avoided open displays of affection, even around Bruce and Thor, but she allowed it this time, turning into the touch and letting him have his fill until the elevator car slowed.

Bruce stepped out first, the moment the doors opened. Probably uncomfortable, Tony suspected, and made a note to work on convincing Bruce try to track down Betty once the current situation had been dealt with. He and Natasha stepped apart and followed. The others were already arrayed around the coffee table in the living room, including Pepper, with a container of take-out in their hands. Thor and Steve each had two more containers of food sitting in front of them, waiting until they were finished with their first.

Tony rubbed his hands together as he settled between Bucky and Clint on the sofa, watching Natasha squeeze herself in between Pepper and Steve on the love seat. Thor and Bruce each had laid claim to one of the plush armchairs. Bruce because he preferred to sit alone, and Thor because he found it more comfortable, thanks to his ridiculously broad shoulders. Tony broke his silence to ask, "so what've we got tonight?"

Steve picked up his first container of food. "Italian," he replied succinctly.

Thor nodded. "I wished to try this pasta of carbonara."

The conversation stayed on neutral topics after that until the end of the meal.

\------

[1] Follow the [link](https://www.google.ch/maps/@48.9593555,87.6395998,7.63z?hl=en) for a map of the region I'm referring to. Click here to return to text.

[2] I've made up this base, but here's a link to some more info on the Spetsnaz units: wikipedia link. Click here to return to text.

[3] Follow the link for a map of the region I'm referring to. Click here to return to text.

[4] For those not in the know, LZ is military slang for "Landing Zone". Click here to return to text.

[5] The number of men in a military company can vary. I'm picking this number out of a range I found here: [wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_\(military_unit\)). Click here to return to text.

[6] Follow the [link](http://www.combataircraft.com/en/Tactics/Air-To-Air/High-Speed-Yo-Yo/) for a description of this aerial maneuver with pictures. Click here to return to text.

[7] Follow the [link](http://www.combataircraft.com/en/Tactics/Air-To-Air/High-G-Barrel-Roll/) for a description of this aerial maneuver with pictures. Click here to return to text.


	2. Chapter 2

Once everyone had finished eating, Steve turned to him, and Tony just _knew_ what was coming. He held up a hand to forestall Steve's sentence, and gathered his thoughts. After a beat, he nodded. "Okay, go."

Bucky snorted, amused, but the rest of them stayed silent. Steve rolled his eyes, but accepted it. "What have you found," he asked.

Bruce replied, a little quicker off the mark than Tony was. "Nothing yet, Steve," he said. "We've designed the algorithm and started writing the code, but it's not finished or tested yet."

Tony nodded. "And we need to do the calibrations, too. Luckily, JARVIS and I still have copies of the data on SHIELD's servers and our own recordings to work with for that, so it shouldn't take too long."

Bucky was watching them with a speculative expression on his face. "What kind of timeframe are we looking at, here," he wanted to know.

"To get the search running?" Tony thought about it. "Hopefully by tomorrow morning. If not, definitely by afternoon. To find the alleged stolen tech?" He shrugged. "That depends on whether or not there is any to find, on the weather conditions, on the terrain, and any number of other factors. Impossible to predict."

"And if we get another mission from SHIELD to go on another wild goose chase before your search turns anything up?" Clint wanted to know.

Thor shrugged. "If we are assigned a mission, we must go, lest we arouse suspicion or anger."

Steve turned to look at him. "You think SHIELD is hiding something from us again?"

Natasha snorted. "Steve, SHIELD is a secret wrapped in layers of deception. Not even Fury knows everything that goes on, though he prefers to pretend he does."

"That's not reassuring," Pepper quipped, looking tense.

"Anyway," Tony grumbled, "if we get another mission, we'll have to take it, or give away that we know something bigger is in play. This whole clusterfuck feels like we're being maneuvered into a trap or a catch-22 situation. That base we just hit? That was mocked up to look like a target. Someone's out to try to make it look like we're overstepping our bounds, or incompetent."

Bucky gave him a sharp look, and suddenly it was like he was looking at a mix of Bucky and the Asset. "Explain," he demanded, his tone flat, and Tony gaped at him for a long moment.

Steve looked like he would intercede, but Bucky gave him a quelling look. "I'm me, Steve. This might be important."

Groping for the words to put to the vague instincts, Tony scrubbed at his face. The whole team was watching him closely, now. "The first base, the one four-- no, five days ago. We found nothing but a skeleton crew, and they were barely armed. It was a joke."

Bucky nodded. "Go on."

"The base was barely defended, and that makes no sense. I didn't think about it, then, but it's almost obvious now. If they were actually holding Chitauri tech, they'd have it as well guarded as possible. That's the kind of shit that would get them targeted by _everyone_. From government agencies all over the world, all the way down to garden variety terrorists. But it wasn't."

"The base was empty, too, wasn't it?" Bucky was watching him like a hawk, and nodded grimly when Tony startled.

They hadn't discussed their mission with him in detail last time. Not like this. So the question was stunning in its implications. Tony watched Bucky closely in turn as he nodded. "It was. Whoever was using it took all their materiel and bugged out before we got there."

"And the people left manning the base knew nothing useful," Bucky added.

It wasn't a question. Tony nodded. "They didn't. And the second base was a step higher, as though they were testing us. More goons, that time, and still none of the tech that they should have been defending. All the computers wiped long before we got there, and no way to recover the information. It was a more convincing feint, but it was obvious that someone knew ahead of time that we'd be showing up."

Bucky's eyes were narrow, now. "All the computers were pristine? A bit too clean?"

How the fuck did he know that? Tony hesitated before he confirmed the guess. "Yeah. Exactly."

"Fuck." Swearing, Bucky stood and paced. After a long silence, he said, "That sounds like the group that held me. I never told you about them. Didn't really wanna relive it if I didn't have to. But there ain't no way I want any of you fallin' into their hands." Steve stood and took a step towards him, stopping when Bucky shook his head. He continued after a beat, holding Steve's eyes and seeming to use the echoed pain he saw to keep himself talking. "Right after that disastrous mission on the train... someone picked me up, and I didn't know who it was." Bucky made a derisive sound. "It didn't take me long to figure out that they weren't overly friendly, but I couldn't do anythin'. I was down an arm and pretty much incapacitated."

That time, he allowed Steve to approach him and pull him close, staring fixedly down at the metal of his prosthetic. Pepper looked like she might be sick, and Clint had squeezed his eyes shut. Natasha seemed calm as a pool in a Japanese garden, but Tony knew she knew what was coming and was clinging to that calm with her fingernails. Thor's anger was palpable, though. The whole room felt electrified, and not just because of the emotions running high. Bruce stood and excused himself. The rest of them let him go. Hulk had taken a real shine to Bucky, and there were better than even odds that this confession was making him want to come out and smash.

Bucky watched Bruce go with a knowing look in his eyes. Eventually, he continued, the words seeming to fall like stones into the silence. "I have no idea how much time passed between that and my next clear memory. Strapped down on a table, again, and starin' at a cracked yellowish ceiling. A voice that sounded weirdly familiar. I didn't know who the asshole was, at first. There was just this awareness that I knew who he was, somehow. That he wasn't a friendly. I didn't learn who he was until much later."

"Who?" Steve's arms tightened around Bucky, until Bucky reached down and pried at them with his left hand. Steve jumped, and his grip loosened again when he realised how much of his strength he was using.

Clint grimaced, knowing this wouldn't be easy for any of them to hear.

"Zola." Bucky looked haunted, and Steve sick.

Tony blinked. That was a name he knew, and not just because dear old dad had been obsessed with Cap. _j wasnt he picked up by SHIELD at some point?_

A holographic interface opened under his hand in response, with the files in question already open. JARVIS didn't reply verbally, though, and Tony could see the grateful look Bucky gave him and his AI for the non-interruption.

Steve, though, had taken a step back, and his hands were clenched tightly at his sides. "Zola was dealt with. We got him and Phillips squeezed him until he squealed like the coward he was."

Natasha shook her head. "It's not widely known, but SHIELD recruited him under the auspices of Operation Paperclip[8]," she told him, watching warily as Steve's expression darkened.

"Whose bright idea was that?" Steve looked incensed.

Natasha shook her head. "I don't know."

"It's not listed in any of the archives," Tony put in, looking up from the documents JARVIS had pulled up for him. "As top secret as it's possible to be. I'd bet you only a few people knew then, and even fewer know now."

Bucky nodded. "He only lived until the 70s, near as I could tell. After that, I started seeing someone else's face when I woke up. Never found out his name."

Steve stalked out after Bruce, back and shoulders stiff, and pretty obviously only barely restraining his emotions. Tony shrugged. Let him go take it out on the heavy bag like he usually did.

That was when Clint finally spoke up. "Any identifying marks or features?"

Bucky made a face. "Already tried that. None of the databases maintained by Interpol or similar organizations have him listed."

Natasha made sound that approximated grimly amused. "Not all of the dangerous men are. Hammer wasn't."

Pepper groaned. "At least _he_ was incompetent."

"I'm getting that story later," Bucky told them, then he continued. "That's true, but I wasn't about to waste my time trying to play twenty questions with Google. That would get no one anywhere."

Tony gestured around the room. "Between us, we know most, if not all, of the important players on the international stage. Industrial, political, or just loaded."

"All I've got are fragmented flashes, really. Nothing really distinctive. Looked like any other rich asshole, if you ask me. Shit-eating grin, expensive cologne," Bucky looked down at the floor for a moment and swallowed. "Looked like the kind of man you could trust, as long as you didn't dig past the surface layer. White, middle-aged, reddish blond hair, square face. It's not enough for any kind of identification."

Pepper sighed. "I hate to admit it, but you've got a point." She stood and walked carefully over to him. "Are you alright?"

Somehow, her question seemed to shatter whatever wall he was using to keep the emotions in check, and Bucky's arms went around her, pulling her close. A sound that approximated a sob came from him as his head came down to rest against the side of her neck. Natasha was there a moment later, on his other side. Tony decided to leave them to it. He'd be more useful if he tracked down Bruce so they could buckle down to the issue of the satellites and the search pattern they were designing.

Natasha caught his eyes when he stood, and nodded when he pointed to the elevator. Clint and Thor joined him, quietly leaving the room.

"I must find some calm, or the coming battle will be... difficult. Should you have need of me, call. I shall carry my comm link." Thor said and simply took the stairs, choosing to jog up the three flights to his apartments.

Tony watched him go, and sighed. "This is such a clusterfuck. I've gotta grab Bruce and finish what we were working on before dinner. Think you're up to distracting Cap?"

"I can try," Clint shrugged. "At least Barnes is taken care of."

The elevator stopped on the level containing the team's private gym, and Tony could hear the thuds of Steve's workout all the way from here. Clint could too, from the way he winced. "Wish me luck."

Tony huffed and slapped his ass. "Like you need luck."

Clint grumbled something under his breath that Tony ignored, and stalked off as the elevator doors closed.

_j wheres bruce,_ he asked.

"Dr. Banner is currently meditating in a corner of his laboratory."

_ask him if he'll come join me in the 'shop?_

The elevator doors opened on the foyer outside the workshop, and Tony stepped off the elevator. A quick gesture had the workshop door opening, Extremis allowing him to enter his codes without touching the interface. He settled in the chair in front of his primary workstation, powering up the holographic interfaces, pulling up the energy signatures he and JARVIS had recorded during the Invasion, and beginning to put together the code for the search pattern. The hardware setup was simple; his satellites included a few with spectroscopic instrumentation, launched after the Chitauri had tried to flatten New York, and this new mission was the perfect reason to fire them up and put them to use. Once Bruce showed up, he'd be in charge of testing and error checking while Tony worked on the software optimisation.

\------

[8] Operation Paperclip was a real thing, and for more information I'm going to point y'all to [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip). Click here to return to text.


	3. Chapter 3

It took less than twenty-eight hours for them to get the third assignment. Coulson showed up at about noon, looking almost ruffled. It was a state Tony had only rarely seen the Agent in, and therefore concerning.

"Captain," he greeted Steve, who lounged comfortably on the sofa opposite Tony.

"What have you got for us, Agent Coulson?" Steve didn't stand.

"I'd prefer to save that until everyone is present."

Tony snorted. "JARVIS, notify the others that it's time to assemble?"

"Of course, sir." The AI sounded slightly put out, and Tony wondered why. For once Coulson hadn't forced his way in, to all appearances.

The team showed up in ones and twos over the course of the next few minutes. Bucky stalked over to the sofa and prodded Steve into sitting up. Natasha snagged the other open seat on Steve's other side. Clint joined Tony, and Bruce stayed standing, as was his wont. Thor stood, too, choosing to lean against the back of the sofa, behind Natasha.

"So?" Tony prompted. "Talk to us, Agent."

Clint nodded. "What's going on, sir?"

The briefing was slightly different, this time. The intel suggested that the Chitauri tech was elsewhere, but this base that they were targeting was known to be a research facility specialising in memory research. It was also substantially better defended than the others had been, and located much closer to home. They would be going to Ontario, Canada[9].

That had rung metaphorical alarm bells, and Tony had caught Bucky's eyes. He'd gotten a subtle nod in return, and that had been that until the briefing had started to wind down.

"We head out first thing tomorrow morning," Coulson informed them. "0600 hours, with full kit loadout. Armour up."

"0600," Steve acknowledged the request, and they waited until Coulson had left again before they began debating.

"I don't like this," Bruce was the first to speak, his arms crossed and tone bordering on nervous. He paced back and forth along the short side of the room twice. The silence held until he spoke again; all of them could tell he had more to say. "This feels like a trap, and we have no idea which of us they're after. Unless it's all of us."

Natasha shrugged. "Does it matter? We're all prepared to do everything we can to prevent that. Or retrieve the one taken, if it comes to that."

Steve looked grim, but nodded. "Damn right, we will. But let's try to avoid that eventuality, if we can."

"I can probably improvise some GPS trackers, if that would make you feel better," Tony offered.

Clint nodded, looking thoughtful. "That's not a bad idea, but will you have time to make sure they integrate with our uniforms?"

Tony looked up at JARVIS' camera. "J, fire up the fabrications units and get me twelve each of the micro-GPS chips, batteries, and housings," he requested. He turned back to face the team and continued. "I'm making an executive decision, here, and adding them to everyone's uniforms permanently from here on out. Encryption keyed only to me or JARVIS. Anyone objects, now's the time to speak up." He paused and looked around the room, catching everyones' eyes in turn, but no one said a word. Standing with a nod, Tony added, "Bucky, I'll need you to come have yours fitted in an hour."

"Me?" Bucky looked up at him, surprised. "I'm not on your team."

"Maybe not," Tony shot back, "but you can bet there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on you. Or will be, once they work out who you are. Fury knows. We had no choice but to tell him. Whether the secret's gotten out from there? Anyone's guess."

Natasha looked thoughtful as she replied. "Even if it hasn't," she suggested, "it's still a good emergency measure."

Thor broke his silence, then. "Is the Sergeant coming with us, then?"

The team exchanged looks. That would be a first. Steve looked at Bucky. "Do you want to? We might need all hands on deck for this, if Bruce's hunch is right."

"It's never a bad thing to have someone here to keep an eye on things while we're out," Tony disagreed. "The other top contender for reasons to get us all out of the Tower would be to create the opportunity to take a strike at us, here. And my defenses are good, but they're not impenetrable. Even with JARVIS running things. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like knowing that the homefront is defended."

Natasha nodded. "If Coulson and SHIELD can get through, others can too."

That stopped Steve seemingly cold and he visibly reconsidered. "What are you suggesting?"

Tony shrugged. "Well, I don't know which is more likely, frankly. The idea that this base we're supposed to take out is a trap for us, or that it's another feint, designed to get the team as a whole out of the Tower, and the country for that matter, so that they can attack the building. Or possibly both."

Bruce frowned. "You're saying that they know we're looking for them?"

"No," Tony shook his head. "No, that wouldn't be possible unless they've got a backdoor into my systems. Which is unlikely but possible. But even if they did, do you think they'd be good enough to get in and out without leaving traces that JARVIS or I would find?"

Natasha snorted. "Vanishingly unlikely. It's more probable that they'd be after whatever's on Tony's private servers."

Clint bounced on the balls of his feet. "So maybe instead of getting paranoid, we should prepare for our mission as planned, then."

Bucky nodded. "Without more intel, we can't really do more than flip a coin, here."

Thor made a rumbling sound deep in his chest as he considered. "Perhaps Clint and I should stay here."

Steve nodded slowly, seeing the logic behind the suggestion; with two snipers on their team that would mean that Bucky could get some experience working with the team on what was hopefully to be an easy mission, and Thor would be able to come join them if needed. Clint and Thor were also both very capable fighters, and more than prepared to fight off anyone who might try to take out the Tower. "How long would it take you to get to us, from here?"

"Hmm, perhaps an hour and a half," Thor eventually replied. "Not quickly enough to be much aid in a skirmish."

Natasha nodded. "But quickly enough to help in a drawn out fight. Keep an ear on the comms."

Tony clapped his hands together and made his way over to the elevator. "I'll be in the workshop."

"Don't take all day," Steve told him.

Tony didn't say anything, choosing to nod instead. The elevator doors closed on the scene as Natasha replied, "we'll make sure he doesn't."

\------

When Bucky showed up as promised, an hour later, Tony had half of the little GPS trackers assembled and tested. They were tiny little things that required him to use a magnifying glass and tiny forceps to assemble, about a quarter inch in diameter, and two millimeters thick. The housing was made of silicone rubber and made the little things waterproof, in addition to very robust and impact resistant. The silicone would also lend itself really well to being glued in place, as an added benefit.

Bucky stepped up to look curiously over Tony's shoulder at them. "Those are your little tracking bugs?" He asked, sounding skeptical.

Tony grinned at him. "They are. J, throw up the live feed tracking bug number five on one of the screens?"

JARVIS did so, without replying verbally, and Tony picked up the little silicone button. "These are about as high tech and high resolution as it's possible to get. Military grade. I designed their systems, about six years ago. Theirs has resolution down to about a foot, and is about ten times the size of this one. This is the upgraded miniaturised model, and as such, it takes far less power to run. Totally passive except for the return ping to the satellite. Patent pending. I have plans to market them for use in all kinds of tech, but they were originally an idea I was toying with for SI's cell phone line." He took the little button and carried it over to the little kitchenette, and watched, satisfied, as the little dot on the representative map of the workshop followed. "They even have limited usability underground, though that hasn't been properly tested yet."

Now Bucky was looking impressed. "How far underground?"

"Not very. A few meters, at most," Tony shrugged and brought the little tracker back to his worktable, setting it down with the others. "Might not even be that much, depending on the density and composition of the ground between it and the satellite."

"So what'd you mean by 'fitting', anyway," Bucky brought the conversation back on track.

"Well," Tony looked him over, "these will be installed in pairs. The others all get theirs in two separate places; one in their uniforms and one in their weapon of choice. But you... I thought maybe you'd be amenable to a different approach."

"That being?"

"Let me put one of them in your arm."

Bucky stared at him for a long moment. "You better be sure that's a good idea, Tony," he replied, "'cause I ain't."

Tony shrugged. "Look. These are inert, and won't affect the electronics in your arm. Small enough not to get in the way of the servos, and let's face it, there's a good chance someone else already installed one. I can fish it out and replace it if you let me."

That got him a wary look. "And just what does that entail?"

"Mostly time." Tony gestured around him at the workshop, "I've got the tools for the job, you know."

"And if you can't find it, what then?"

"Then I'll put in mine, and we'll leave the de-bugging for another day." Tony paused to study Bucky, who stood in front of him, body language radiating uncertainty. "Hm. There's no polite way to ask this, but I'm going to do it anyway: is that arm of yours replaceable, or did they just attach it without making sure they could fix it?"

The question got him a blank look and a blink. "I'm... not sure? That's not something they ever really mentioned around me, and if they ever just replaced it wholesale I never noticed. Or maybe that memory just never came back."

Picking up the little tracker and a tube of adhesive, Tony nodded and stepped up to him. "That's what I thought. So. Decision time. Yes or no?"

Bucky hesitated for almost a full minute before he nodded. "Do it. The other one goes in the uniform, like with the others."

"Fair enough." Tony pointed him at the extra chair placed next to the workbench. "Put your arm on the bench for me?" he requested. "Oh, and let me know if anything feels strange or painful."

\------

By the time he'd finished the job, Tony was starting to feel the impact of skipping lunch. He knew Bucky could see it, too. The moment the plates of his arm were closed back up and secured, he was standing, and pulling Tony up after him with a startled squawk. "Hey!"

"Nope, I don't think so. You need to eat."

Tony protested, but Bucky was implacable.

"Steve's bad enough," he grumbled, and Tony suppressed a wince. "I don't really need another stubborn idiot to keep track of."

Tony grumbled back, wordlessly, but he gave in once the elevator doors had closed, grumbling and leaning in to leave a bite on Bucky's neck in retaliation. It got him a surprised yelp and a swat to his ass that stung a little. Tony grinned, and would have continued, but then Bucky was hauling him out of the elevator car with an arm hooked around his waist, and pushing him down into a chair in the communal kitchen.

It was like magic; the moment Bucky turned away to put together something to eat, Steve and Natasha appeared in the room and settled on either side of Tony. He suspected collusion, but it was kind of nice to know all of them cared enough. It wasn't just Pepper and Natasha keeping an eye on him anymore.

Tony gave in to the impulse, and leaned against Steve. It got him an amused huff and an arm around his waist.

"Tired?" Steve prodded at him verbally.

"Mmm, not really," he replied. "Felt like it."

Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, but kept quiet. She knew how touch hungry he got sometimes. It tended to happen when a mission loomed, mostly, born of worry and his tendency to look too much to the future and see disaster.

Didn't matter that he knew all of them were competent fighters, or that they'd always come back alive so far.

A plate and flatware landed in front of him and Tony was jerked out of his thoughts.

"Eat," Bucky demanded. "Steve, what'd'you want?"

"Whatever's fine. I'm just here for a snack and some company."

Bucky nodded. "Natasha?"

"Don't worry about me," she gave him a small smile. "I ate an hour ago."

Rather than pay attention, Tony picked up the flatware and pulled the plate closer. He wasn't quite sure what all was in this, but it looked like some variation on Steve's spaghetti.

It amused Tony that the room was quiet, for the most part, until he'd finished the majority of it, but he didn't comment. It was comfortable.

But, eventually, Steve broke the silence. "How far are you in your preparations?"

Tony paused between bites of pasta and sauce to answer. "Finished the most delicate parts. Buttons are all fabricated, and Bucky's is installed. Field testing will have to happen on the spot, but the trackers are proven tech. Shouldn't be any issues."

"And the rest of us?" Natasha looked like she knew the answer.

Tony made a face at her. "Yours will be in your gear; one each in your costume and one in your primary weapon. Bucky's was a little more complicated to install, given that that's his arm."

Steve gave him a knowing look. "You just wanted to go digging around in it, and tweak the tech."

Tony shrugged, and didn't answer, taking another bite of his food instead. His plate was almost empty, and he definitely felt a lot better.

Bucky snorted. "I knew that before he started. It only got more obvious as he worked."

\------

Tony spent the remainder of the evening in his workshop, minus another break for dinner. Bruce joined him for the first few hours, leading to the completion of their search module. Satisfied with their efforts -- the program was running smoothly and giving them clean data -- Tony added the commands to route a copy of the search results to the armour in real time.

They'd put priority on regions in which there was any kind of conflict, and very remote areas, where that type of research might go unnoticed, so their search would take some time to complete. That encompassed a lot of territory.

After Bruce had left, Tony had turned his attention to implementing the modifications to his armour that he'd promised Natasha he would make. _how we doing with the adjustments to the onboard medkit?_ he asked JARVIS.

"I would estimate them to be about 84% complete, sir," the AI answered. "The designs are nearly finished, but require some optimisation in order to function at peak capacity if they are not to interfere with any other armour systems."

_show me,_ Tony gestured in front of him, and a holographic interface popped up in response.

It felt like five minutes later Natasha was standing at his shoulder, but he had finished the design and JARVIS was half finished with machining and assembling it.

"Come to bed," she demanded, voice low and level as usual, but Tony could hear a hint of what sounded like concern.

"You know the drill, J," he said, standing up and stretching. "Save and exit. I'll need the new suit in the morning."

\------

Early the next morning, as promised, a SHIELD quinjet landed on the Tower's helipad, and the team filed aboard, with Bucky, and leaving behind Clint and Thor. That had gotten Steve a raised eyebrow from Coulson, but nothing more.

The flight took just under an hour, and then they were stepping out into the just-tolerably warm air of the Canadian sub-arctic summer. They were planning to land the quinjet at the tiny airport of Kashechewan, Ontario, and make the rest of the trip overland. There was a problem with this approach, though. There were no roads out here, with the exception of an ice road in winter, and all the eye could see was forest. There were lots of rivers threaded through the area, and it made Tony glad that he could fly. The plan was to take a boat up the unnamed river that ran parallel to the Albany River, until they were a few klicks from the base, and then make the rest of the trip -- some 5 kilometers or so -- from the river to the base in a 4x4.

The base was almost 150 km away from the coast, deep in the forests, and it would take them at least three hours to get there. Probably more.

Tony thought this level of caution was stupid, but he wasn't in charge. SHIELD had made the arrangements for them this time, and Steve had gone along with it for whatever reason. Someone in the analysts group had decided that it would be more sensible to land at the airport, where planes were nominally supposed to land. And that made sense as far as it went. Divert suspicion as much as possible, great idea. But... it completely neglected to factor in the fact that it also added a hell of a long trip, and left them very exposed to attack.

He'd ended up deputised to scout out the area, and keep an eye out for possible ambushes, and so here he was, hovering in the air about half a mile up, and just waiting, bored out of his skull.

From the chatter he could hear on the team comms, the others were, too, and smirked to himself. "You know, at least you guys have changing scenery to look at," he pointed out.

Bucky was the one to reply. "Not that it's changing much. Look a tree. Oh, look, a different tree."

\------

It took another hour and forty minutes, and they almost missed the fork in the river that would lead them right to the base, but then they were finally all in position. Tony was hovering high above the base to keep an eye on the situation as they approached, taking advantage of his small radar profile to hide in plain sight.

Steve and Natasha were positioned together just beyond the southern edge of the base, hidden in the trees. Bucky and Bruce were keeping a wary eye on things from the north.

The general plan was simple. Tony, Steve and Natasha would take on the base and Hulk would join the fight if they seemed to be getting overwhelmed. Bucky was in charge of making sure no stragglers escaped into the forest.

"Iron Man," Steve's voice came over the comm, "commencing attack in 10 seconds from mark. ... mark!"

JARVIS started a counter without needing to be asked, and Tony waited until there were two seconds left on the clock before he cut his thrusters and dropped vertically, landing in the middle of the base's small open courtyard with a loud crash of metal on concrete.

It grabbed the attention of all of the guards, who shouted in alarm and turned to fire at him, uselessly, and gave Steve and Natasha all the opening that they needed to get in through the now undefended front door. Tony managed to take down five of the ten men closest to him before Steve's shield came whizzing through the air to hit three more, then rebound off a wall and fly back to him. Natasha got the last two, and did it in a way that made the takedowns look effortless, kneeing one in the head and using her Widow's Bite on the other.

They had just enough time for Steve and Natasha to exchange a look and nod before the next four squads came pouring into the courtyard from doors Tony hadn't been able to see from the air. Firing his thrusters to get back into the air, Tony started taking pot shots at whichever goon was closest to reaching either of his teammates. "Anyone got eyes on the entrance to the labs? Satellite footage couldn't pinpoint them."

Steve, ducking into a roll to avoid taking a punch, popped back up on his feet and knocked the goon out with a quick swipe of his shield. "Not yet, Iron Man."

Natasha, bore her victim to the ground and making sure he was out, and swayed gracefully out of the path of one goon's punch, letting it smack solidly into the jaw of the goon trying to come up behind her. "It's most probably the middle door on the north side," she replied, dealing with the goon who had tried to punch her with a lovely right hook to the jaw that made him fold like a cheap table.

Before any of them could make a move towards the door, though, another five squads poured into the courtyard, wading into the fight. Combined with the remaining half of the other four squads still on their feet, that was enough to start overwhelming Steve and Natasha. Tony did his best to help, but he wasn't good at close quarters fighting. "Bruce," he called into the comms, "little help here?"

He didn't get a verbal reply, but a moment later, he heard Hulk bellow, and saw his grin echoed on Steve's face.

Seconds later, Hulk was on the scene, and treating the goons like they were bowling pins. He plowed right through the mêlée, scooping Natasha into one arm as he went, and sending men flying. Steve somehow managed to avoid Hulk's charge, eeling through the crowd of goons still on their feet, and leaving a trail of unconscious bodies behind him.

It didn't take long for the goons to regroup, though. They collectively paused to take a breath, then charged, focusing on Steve as the easiest target. Tony started knocking them out one by one, and Hulk put Natasha down on the periphery of the fight. Cracking his metaphorical knuckles, Hulk waded back into the crowd, laying goons out right and left. The four of them found a rhythm again almost without missing a beat, working together to get all the goons under control.

"How you doing out there, Sergeant," Tony prompted as the fight wore on, trying to get Bucky to check in. He hadn't said a word since the mission had started, and that was vaguely worrying.

The line stayed silent.

\------  
[9] [](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/cailamaia/media/fic-related/ontario%20map_3rd%20base.jpg.html)  
Click here to return to text.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky's lack of reply got his attention in a hurry, and Tony frowned. He could see Steve's head come up a beat later, concerned.

"Iron Man," Steve called, "check on him? We'll be fine here."

"Right," he acknowledged, and took off for Bucky's last known position. _j bring up his tracker would you,_ he requested, a suspicion forming that he didn't like at all.

A map projection came up on his HUD, but the dot meant to illustrate the tracker's position was nowhere to be seen. "Sir, I am afraid I cannot locate Sgt. Barnes."

Tony growled. "Fucking hell. Give me his last known position. Cap, we might have a problem."

The dot appeared on his HUD, greyed out and inactive. There wasn't anything to be found there, though. No obvious signs of a struggle, though there were at least four sets of bootprints.

Steve didn't answer him directly. "Hawkeye," he called into the comms, "do us a favor and start digging. You have contacts," he paused to knock out a goon with a grunt, "start asking around. Quietly."

"Let you guys draw attention," Clint replied, "got it. And SHIELD?"

A closer look revealed signs that, whoever it was, they'd somehow dragged Bucky away. The tracks stopped on a small concrete pad fifteen meters away, and there was no way to determine where Bucky had been taken. "With the way our missions have been going sideways, I don't know that we should trust them," Tony answered, knowing his tone was approaching icy rage.

Natasha agreed. "Not until we're sure."

"I've got no telemetry on the Sergeant," Tony reluctantly reported, a beat later. "There are some tracks that end on a concrete pad, but no signs of vehicles departing, no aircraft -- private or otherwise, and no hidden doors that I can detect."

Hulk, overhearing that, roared in anger, and landed on the concrete pad seconds later, doing his best to smash it to powder. 

Tony let him, watching carefully to see whether anything came of Hulk's rage. The others finished dealing with the goons before Hulk had finished his self-assigned demolition and joined Tony on the sidelines. Together, they waited out Hulk's rage and Coulson's cleanup.

They didn't normally bother, since that was beyond the scope of the team's responsibilities. But they'd come to a consensus without needing to discuss it, this time; they needed to know what Coulson knew.

If anything.

\------

The group of them cornered Coulson once he was free and persuaded him to join them on the quinjet as they flew back to New York. It hadn't taken much more than an exchanged glance between Coulson and Natasha to do it. Tony wasn't exactly surprised that that had worked, but it had been far easier than he'd thought.

Once they were aboard the jet, he took advantage of having Extremis to quickly sweep it for bugs before they started. It was likely there were some, but their removal had never been a priority until now. Three pinged against his senses and the armour's sensors, and he walked over to each and disabled them. He settled in the pilot's seat and took off once he was satisfied the jet was clean. Coulson gave him a Look, which he ignored. It wasn't often that Tony joined them on the jet, so it was obvious to Coulson that something was up; he kept his silence, though.

Steve and Natasha stood facing Coulson, and Bruce lay on one of the bench seats, passed out. 

It was Natasha that eventually broke the building silence. "We need to know, Phil," she said, "how our enemies had the intel that Barnes was coming with us on this op."

The implications were clear; they'd told no one else. Hell, they hadn't even told Coulson until they'd left New York.

Coulson raised an eyebrow at them. "Explain."

Tony rolled his eyes, desperately wanting to repulsor something or someone into submission. "Look, it's all there," he called from his position at the helm. "This is the third straight mission that's turned into a clusterfuck. We've been in contact with no one but SHIELD about them. Our enemies were prepared for us every time. And, now, they've managed to capture one of our friends. No one but you knew we were bringing Barnes in on this mission."

Tony glanced back at the right moment to see Steve nod stiffly.

"What is going on here, Agent?" Steve demanded.

Coulson sounded somewhere between pissed and thoughtful. "I can understand your feelings about the Sergeant being taken," he said slowly. Tony scoffed, but Coulson ignored him and continued, "but getting angry at me will not solve that problem."

There was a tense pause, then Natasha replied. "Perhaps not, but you are our primary contact within SHIELD. Who have you been giving information to in Mission Planning?"

"I see what you're implying, but they're solid."

Tony thought Coulson didn't sound totally confident, though. Natasha picked up on it, too. "And the people who they've been talking to?"

Coulson shrugged. "I have no control over that. Let me ask a few questions when we're back in New York. Believe it or not, I'm quite happy that the Sergeant has been recovering as well as he has. If for no other reason than your own mental health, Captain."

That was the end of the discussion.

Tony wanted to protest, but Natasha came up to take the co-pilot's seat, and caught his eyes. "Leave it for now, Tony. Focus on tracing Barnes once we're back in New York, and take Steve with you. He'll be better at that than the information gathering."

Gritting his teeth, Tony nodded. Thankfully it wouldn't be long before they were back at the Tower.

_you know the drill, j,_ he sent to the AI. _keep the sweep for bucky's trackers running, and tap into any and everything that might help; i dont care if it's the pentagon or the fbi._

\------

The quinjet touched down on the Tower's helipad a grueling three hours and twenty-three minutes later, and Tony was ducking out of the aircraft less than ten seconds later.

_got anything for me, j?_ he asked as he walked through the suit removal gantry, and into the penthouse.

"Nothing as yet, sir," the AI replied verbally as he stepped in through the doors and out of the late June heat.

Pepper, Clint, and Thor were there, waiting, and looked up the moment he walked in. Pepper was on her feet immediately and hurrying over to wrap her arms around him. "Tony, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Pep." He gratefully returned the embrace, feeling himself calm and settle. Burying his nose in her hair, he tightened his hold just slightly and muttered, "love you."

She dropped a kiss on his cheek and took charge. "Okay, come on. First things first. You are going to eat something, and then make sure Steve does too."

"But--"

"Tony, you've got JARVIS working on it already. Let him do his thing for another twenty minutes, and take care of yourself."

Clint snorted. "She's got a point," he put in. "Go make sure you don't collapse on us."

Steve and Natasha, walking in with a still-passed-out Bruce slung between them, overheard the comment and nodded.

Thor, who had stayed silent until now, brooding and glowering, watched them deposit Bruce on the sofa then spoke. "What information do we have?"

"Nothing," Steve replied, a bitter undertone in his voice. "It's like that damned train all over again. None of the search parties ever found a sign of him that time either."

Tony wanted to say something, but Pepper hooked a finger under his chin and used the way their arms were wrapped tightly around one another to start walking Tony toward the kitchen. He didn't bother objecting. He was starting to feel the familiar post-battle adrenaline crash, albeit somewhat worse than he was accustomed to, thanks to the continued stress.

There was a fine tremble in his arms that he refused to think about, and his legs suddenly felt like they'd turned to lead. 

Pepper pushed him into a chair and moved just close enough to the door to catch Natasha's attention. Tony watched, distantly amused as she prodded Steve into motion as well. Tony could get behind that plan. Steve needed some kind of distraction from the knowledge that Bucky had been taken.

Once Natasha had bullied Steve into sitting beside Tony, she took one look at them and made a decision. "You two," she said, "eat, then come join us. We'll be in the living room."

Steve, looking almost numb, nodded. "Food sounds good," he managed.

Tony could hear the lost undertone to his voice, and leaned to his left, plastering himself to Steve's side. Reminding him that they were still here on more than just a conscious level. He knew how that could influence someone; it had helped him with his nightmares often enough.

"Steve," he muttered, "stop thinking. We'll do that later. Food first." As he finished the sentence, Pepper reappeared with a take-out bag. It left Tony wondering how the hell he'd missed her departure from the room. "I don't know about you," he added, "but I'm not ready to jump into planning or working, right now."

Steve snorted. "Never stopped you before."

Pepper laughed. "He's gotten better about recognising it, Steve. He just ignores it most of the time."

Tony shrugged, silently acknowledging the truth of that. "Most of the time what I'm doing is not that vital."

He left the implication hanging in the air that, this time, it was.

Setting the bag of food on the breakfast bar in front of them, Pepper dug into it and started setting out plates and utensils. "So eat."

Once the smell of the chicken and rich sauce hit his nose, he couldn't seem to think about anything else. Steve didn't seem to be much better off. Pepper's fingers lingered in Tony's hair for a moment, then Steve's, and then she was gone. Probably back to her office downstairs to go back to her duties as CEO.

Goddamn, but he didn't deserve her.

He loved almost all of them, meantime, and he could admit it to himself. His team was rapidly becoming his touchstone, but Pepper would always be his guiding star, and his bedrock.

A smile tugged at his lips, as he continued wolfing down the food in front of him. Pepper was the perfect counterweight to his own tendency to forget about practical things. And they'd survived enough issues arising out of his neuroses and her stubbornness that they both knew they could take anything else the universe threw at them.

Having that kind of confidence in someone was kind of a new thing for him.

He was loving it.

\------

After they'd eaten, Steve stood, pulling Tony with him with an arm hooked around his waist, and towed him out to the living room. Tony let him; he wanted to know what the others had come up with, as well.

"So?" Steve prompted them.

"Coulson's going to go put his contacts through the wringer," Clint said and shrugged. "Once he's got some names and locations for us, Nat and I will follow up. You two are on search duty; find Barnes. Thor and Banner are in reserve for now."

Tony nodded. "That sounds workable."

Thor grumbled something under his breath then spoke. "When we find the miscreants that took our compatriot, we will make them pay for their presumption."

Steve snorted. "Damn right, we will."

And that was that. Tony dragged Steve down to the workshop with him, and let Natasha start working her magic. He intended to call in Banner's expertise later, if it became applicable. This was more an issue of coding, technical specs, and strategy, though. And that meant that his and Steve's combined talents would be more suited to the problem than Banner's.

The first thing they did was try to logic out what had happened; the signal hadn't stayed where Bucky had been positioned on the mission or reappear somewhere random after being found and dumped, so the trackers still had to be on him. And then there was the way the signal didn't just stop -- it attenuated before it disappeared -- which implied that it was being jammed somehow rather than having been destroyed.

Talking his way through that with Steve listening had had their leader nodding along. Steve looked almost thoughtful after that. _'Anyone who knew he'd been living with us would rightly assume he had some of your tech on him,'_ he'd said to Tony. _'It only makes sense that they would jam it while they searched him for it.'_

There were good odds that at least one of his trackers had been found, based on those assumptions, along with the comm link Tony had handed Barnes at the beginning of the mission, and Barnes' cell phone.

They couldn't assume any of their tech was still on Barnes' person, though there was hope that the tracker Tony had put inside Barnes' arm might have escaped his captors' notice.

Four hours later, Tony was still neck deep in code, working with Extremis to direct JARVIS' searches, and Steve was eyeing their results as they came up, live, adding his suggestions and insights. A typed report from Natasha pinged against his senses, almost like a knock at the door.

_Coulson reports contacts in Washington DC and Miami; leaving for Miami with Hawkeye in 15. DC next stop._

And now he had two cities to focus on that were likely to yield results, if it had indeed been SHIELD's fault that Bucky had been snatched. Not only were those the cities containing the two largest concentrations of agents after New York, but both boasted lots of international traffic and Miami in particular was known for being a hotbed of organised crime. Where was the best place to hide something this illegal? In among all kinds of other illegal dealings. Tony smirked, and sent the requisite commands to JARVIS, then added Chicago, LA, and Houston to the priority list, albeit after his two main targets. _lets find him, buddy._

\------

Two hours later, six hours after they'd gotten back to the Tower and about fourteen since the start of the mission in Canada that had gone so wrong, one of Bucky's two trackers came online again -- in DC.

Steve was immediately on his feet and off to find Thor and Bruce.

Tony refrained from reminding Steve that JARVIS could have called them down from wherever, and stayed in the workshop; he'd let Steve burn off a little of his pent up energy. The man had been on a hair trigger for the last twelve hours and clearly needed to.

In the interval between Steve's abrupt departure and his return with their two remaining teammates, Tony managed to ascertain that the active tracker was the one in Bucky's arm, rather than the one in his uniform. That one was still being jammed. Or, more likely, already destroyed.

When the three of them entered the workshop, Tony was ready. He had their intel gathered on a few holoscreens and coherently organised. Thor and Bruce took one look at him, then glanced back at Steve, and drew what Tony suspected was the correct conclusion.

"Tony," Bruce broke the silence, his eyes flashing Hulk green, "tell me this is reliable."

"Aye," Thor rumbled, his voice rolling through the workshop like thunder, "it would be a relief to see our comrade returned to our ranks."

Tony nodded. "As near as I can determine without physically being there to verify it. JARVIS is working on getting us real-time satellite images of the area, but it's not going to be easy to spot him, even so. Bucky is good at what he does, and anyone that managed to take him has to be just as good. Current GPS coordinates place him in one of the buildings of Indian Head Naval Support Facility[10]. What the hell that's all about, I have no idea."

Bruce was the one to ask the horrifyingly obvious question. "You know," he said, "we've been so focused on getting him back that we never asked ourselves why he was taken."

Well, fuck.

Steve's eyes caught Tony's and they both winced.

Tony turned back to Bruce and replied. "I'd think that was obvious. They want him for what he can do; Bucky's one of the top snipers in the world."

Thor frowned. "Are you suggesting that he might be used to make a political statement of some kind?"

"Oh hell." Steve groaned. "This is going to be a mess."

That got him a disbelieving huff of a laugh from Tony. "You going to let that hold you back," he taunted Steve.

"Not hardly." Steve ran a hand through his hair. "Call Rhodes. Someone needs to play liaison with the military for this. It really wouldn't surprise me at this point if they tried to assassinate the President or someone else of that level of importance."

"Fine, I can arrange that, but Steve... if political impact is what they want, then the two of us better also watch the hell out," Tony put in. "The repercussions of your getting shot would be immense. And mine would send the stock market into a tailspin. Even the rumours were enough to cause a good amount of economic chaos during Afghanistan. And Bucky mentioned something of the sort indirectly before he got his memories back."

That he could just talk about Afghanistan like that, was, in many ways, a sign of how far he'd come since then.

Turning away and tuning the others out as they continued to discuss and strategise, he closed the holoscreens containing the data he'd amassed, and opened up the voip interface he'd designed himself. "Call Rhodey for me, would you, J?"

The call rang out, and Tony raised an eyebrow at it. Rhodey normally picked up if it was him calling. If only to yell at him for interrupting something. He decided he'd wait a couple of minutes.

Sure enough. A minute and a half later, the interface lit up with Rhodey's picture.

"Tony," he opened, "what the hell is important enough that you're calling me at what amounts to a sane hour of the evening?"

"Honeybear," Tony grinned, "you wound me."

"Tony, seriously."

"Applejack, you've been so sour recently. You sure we're okay? I feel like we're having a fight that I wasn't informed about." Tony ribbed him a little more. Bruce was giving him the most incredulous look from outside the camera's view angle, and it was supremely satisfying.

"Are you going to get to the point," Rhodey groaned, making Steve snicker. "Oh, do we have an audience?"

"Yeah, we do. Okay. Here's your point: you wanted me to keep you in the loop after New York. Here's me keeping you in the loop. Remember those experiments at Camp Lehigh that I couldn't tell you about? Well, shit's about to get real. Those involved a guy known as the Winter Soldier. You may have heard of him." Tony ignored Rhodey's intake of breath and the blue streak he started cursing to continue speaking. "Well, turns out the Winter Soldier also happens to be Steve's best friend from back in the day, and we were working on getting him back to normal, but he's been taken. And we can only assume that whoever took him is going to try to take advantage of his skills. If whoever got him is the same group that was running those experiments, they may try to fast-track brainwash him."

"God _damn_ it, Tony," Rhodey sighed. "You are one hell of a trouble magnet."

Tony laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. "Oh, also he's currently at Indian Head, according to the tracker he let me put on him. Which means we need someone to liaise with the Navy."

That got him an incredulous stare and a loud groan. "Are you fucking with me? There's no way this is really happening. It's too crazy."

"Sorry, Platypus," Tony replied. "I'm deadly serious. Anyway. We're heading down to DC shortly. Meet us there, if you can."

He sent Coulson a text to write Rhodey an official email so he could point to it if necessary. Having SHIELD back them on this would make it look better to the brass.

They might need that goodwill later.

\------

It took some arguing, but eventually Tony convinced Steve and Hulk that it was better not to just run in, metaphorical guns blazing. Pepper's support of his position, as an uninvolved party, went a long way toward getting them to agree. She'd just caught Steve's eyes and held them, silently, making him take a step back and _think_ instead of reacting.

Tony frankly thought that was hot as hell, but carefully set that thought aside for later, contenting himself with a kiss. "Stay safe, Potts," he told her. "This could get ugly. Get out to LA, or the Bahamas."

She pulled him in for another kiss, this one fierce, and replied. "You'd better come home to me alive, so help me God, or I will resurrect you so I can kill you again. And bring Bucky with you." Turning her attention to Steve, she imperiously gestured for him to come over. "You too," she told him and pulled him in until he took control and kissed her.

Oddly, that seemed to make him relax a little, and Tony gave him an amused smirk. "Come on, team," he said, turning and picking up his suitcase armour. "We've got hotel reservations and a front row seat to whatever's going to happen after Clint and Natasha show up with their information."

They took advantage of having the quinjet available for the flight itself. With Tony at the helm, they made good time, and somehow he finagled permission from ground control to land early, setting the jet down in the sector of the airport designated for private planes. That night, they ate together as usual, but the atmosphere was tense and the conversation minimal, though the food was excellent.

Even Thor was quiet and broody for a change, his anger making the room feel electrified. That boded ill for their opponents, whoever they were, and Tony found he agreed with the thunder god. All of them liked Bucky, and some felt more strongly yet about him. Steve in particular was a bit of a wreck, and they'd have to keep an eye on him when it came to any fighting.

Bucky's tracker hadn't moved in all this time, so they probably had time to consider their plan of action. And, indeed, they did spend some time discussing possible approaches to take, once they heard from Clint and Natasha, but without knowing what their absent teammates had to say, they didn't come to a consensus. Tony was kind of glad that was the case. It meant Steve was less likely to go off half cocked and storm the Capitol Building on his own, or something.

That night passed in a restless haze. Steve curled around him, taking comfort in being able to wrap Tony up in his arms and not let go. Tony let him. It helped him, too.

A text message from Natasha, early the next morning, had all of them hurrying into their street clothes; they were invited to join her and Clint for breakfast at some cafe nearby, whose name Tony didn't recognise.

When they showed up, Clint and Natasha were seated at a long table that the wait staff had put together out of three smaller ones, and they had a guest sitting with them. Tony could almost feel Steve tense, and put a hand on Steve's shoulder.

Taking the lead, Tony simply sat down next to Natasha and picked up the menu lying there, without comment.

Natasha smirked at him while the others chose their own seats. "Good morning to you, too."

"If you loved me there would be coffee," he retorted. "Who's your new friend here?"

The others were staring down the stranger, who looked nervous but held his own. Clearly he knew who they were and had been briefed. Probably by Natasha.

Clint sighed. "Steve, quit that. Pick up your menu and choose something. Thor, you too. I'm not even going to ask Bruce."

After a beat, they did as requested, and the stranger cleared his throat. "The name's Sam Wilson."

Tony grinned. "So what do you do, Sam?"

"I--" he hesitated, and Tony was struck by the man's awkward smile. Damn.

Tony forced the thought away. "You?"

"Well, I _was_ pararescue," Sam looked caught between pride and painful memories, "until my partner got shot out of the sky."

Ah. Tony carefully made himself step around that conversational landmine. Pararescue guys were among the most elite troops, in his opinion, and he didn't doubt that this guy was damn good at his job. The mostly calm confident demeanour was a good indication. Amused, he raised an eyebrow at Natasha. She'd apparently acquired them a combat medic.

Steve looked up, distracted from the menu by that. "Pararescue?"

"Something the Air Force came up with while you were on ice, Cap," Tony put in. "They organised just after you went under, if I remember correctly.[11]"

Sam nodded, and it seemed to finally register just whom he was talking to. His expression went through a few contortions before it settled back on more or less neutral. "In 1946, in fact. But that's ancient history."

Bruce snorted quietly. "Good, maybe now these morons will stop trying to make me patch them up."

Thor laughed, apparently surprised into it. "Ah, but Dr. Banner," he replied, "you do a fine enough job of it, and it helps to attend to such things immediately rather than waiting until we are back at the Tower."

Bruce grumbled something under his breath, and that was the moment the waitress decided to appear. They spent five minutes putting in their orders and signing autographs for her, when she recognised them. She'd picked out Tony first, of course, his well-known appearance difficult to disguise, even in a hoodie and jeans. The rest of them apparently passed muster more easily.

Once they were alone again, Steve took control of the conversation. "What news do you have for us?" he asked, then paused and added, "is Sam cleared to hear this?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "The man wouldn't be here if he weren't, Cap. Relax."

"We don't have anything truly definitive," Natasha took up the thread, "but there are weird things happening at Indian Head, and SHIELD has apparently been building three next generation Helicarriers in their facility here, the Triskelion."

"There were also a few mentions of something called Project Insight," Clint added, "but that's classified to the highest levels and makes me suspect WSC involvement."

The table was silent for a beat, before Tony sighed. "Well, shit."

Steve elbowed him, careful not to put too much force into it. Sam was the one to speak, though. "If y'all want some help, I'm not opposed. Clint suggested you might want one more flier."

Steve gave him a long level look, assessing. "I can't ask you to do this."

"Dude, the Avengers need my help. Do you really think I'm going to say no?"

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Sam and changed the subject. "You can fly?"

Sam grinned widely. "Just get me my wings back."

"Wings?" Thor sounded legitimately puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"The Air Force saw fit to let me play test pilot once I finished my training. Gave me a set of EXO-7 Falcon tech to play with." Sam replied.

Tony's eyes widened, and he laughed delightedly. "So _that's_ why Natasha picked you up. Now it all makes sense. Alright, out with it. Where did the USAF stash my babies?"

Sam stared at him for a long minute. "Wait. You designed those?"

"Designed, prototyped, tested, built. Yeah," Tony nodded. "Where are they?"

"Locked up tight, at Fort Meade." Sam eyed him. "There's no way you can get them out without cutting through about six miles of red tape, three gates, and a twelve inch steel door."

Natasha smirked at Sam. "Let me worry about that," she told him. Turning to Steve and Tony she continued. "You boys focus on trying to get Director Fury to tell you what Project Insight is. Clint, you're with me."

Steve nodded. "Dr. Banner? Thor? I'm going to keep you two in reserve for now. There's a good chance this will go south on us without warning, but until then, we need to at least try to keep a low profile."

Clint laughed. "Yeah. Tony Stark. Low profile."

\------  
[10] Follow the [link](https://www.google.ch/maps/place/Naval+Support+Facility+Indian+Head/@38.5918562,-77.1857159,12.92z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0x1d3ad7cb0768fcbd?hl=en) for a map of the region I'm referring to. Click here to return to text.

[11] For more information on the Pararescue Corps as an organised entity, follow the: [wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Pararescue). Click here to return to text.


	5. Chapter 5

Somewhat to both their surprise, Fury was in DC and actually agreed (albeit mostly because of Steve's presence, Tony suspected) to see them. For that matter, Tony was convinced Steve got away with a lot thanks to his celebrity status and had no room to criticise anyone else who did, but that was beside the point. They were going -- just the two of them -- to visit Fury in the Triskelion, and try to find out whatever they could.

Tony had brought all the electronics he could easily stash on his person, and fully intended to hack any and everything he could find, while they were there. 

From the outside, the Triskelion looked like any other office building. It was sleeker and newer than many, and in a prime spot along the water, just beyond the borders of DC proper. Tony dearly wanted to know how Fury had pulled that off. Land prices here were ridiculous, even by New York City standards.

Probably the mysterious WSC interfering again, he decided, looking around the cavernous open lobby as they walked in. It was open and airy, all marble floors and glass ceilings, a massive sculpture of the SHIELD logo dead at its center. Tony huffed and commented, "I hate to say it, but they did a nice job with the minimalist design here."

Steve gave him a sardonic look. "Focus."

"Right, sure."

While Steve signed them in with the receptionist who gave him a winning smile, clearly angling for a date or a hookup, Tony carefully tuned out the conversation to keep from rolling his eyes and took advantage of Extremis to connect his phone to the locked WiFi in the building, start his access to the SHIELD servers and direct JARVIS to start downloading the hacked data from his phone to his own servers in the Tower. When Steve handed him a visitor badge, Tony gave the lady a smile and a wink, and they moved on.

The elevator ride up to the 54th floor seemed to stretch on forever, and the glass panels that showed off the view of the river and DC itself made the ride almost dizzying. Or, well, they would have for the average person. Tony was used to flying.

"So," Tony broke the silence, feeling the elevator car start to slow as they approached their destination, "what do you think? Will Fury bother to tell us anything?"

Steve shrugged, and the elevator pinged a moment later. "We'll see."

Steve led the way out of the elevator, taking point as easily as breathing, and outwardly calm.

Tony could see the slight tension in him, though. If Fury had anything to do with Bucky's kidnapping, things could get very ugly very quickly, and they both knew it. To that end, they hadn't shown up in uniform, in the hopes that they would stand out a little less. But, knowing that they were both very recognizable and well-known within SHIELD, that might not make much difference.

Tony had brought his suit, just because he'd gotten into the habit of carrying it everywhere after the incident with Vanko and the Expo disaster. And it had saved his ass more than once.

Steve wasn't carrying his shield, though. He'd left it behind in the hotel room, confident that it would be safe with Thor and Bruce there to keep an eye on it.

The trip from the elevator to Fury's office was short, and his secretary had obviously been told to let them in. Tony suspected Steve would have strong-armed his way in, if she'd resisted, and bit back a wince. Maybe this had been a bad idea after all.

"Captain Rogers," Fury greeted Steve the moment they stepped through the door. "To what do I owe the pleasure."

Wow. Fury was going right for the insults. Tony gave him a look. "What, no greeting for me, Nicky?"

"Tony, not now." Steve glared at Fury. "Tell me, something Director," he demanded, going for the direct approach. "You are the only person at SHIELD besides Agent Coulson that we informed about the presence of my best friend at the Tower, and we know that Coulson is solid. So how did our enemies know to kidnap him?"

"What, exactly, are you implying, Captain?" Fury shot back. "You actually had a point about keeping that as top secret as possible, and I have."

"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve sneered. "Right from the moment we met, you've been holding back."

"I didn't lie."

Tony snorted. "Right. And all those weapons based on the Tesseract whose existence you denied weren't a lie."

"Those never got off the ground, and were not a line of research I felt was worth pursuing," Fury replied, glaring at him with his good eye.

"Look," Steve tried again, "soldiers trust each other. That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns."

Fury turned his glare on Steve. "Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye. It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets, because nobody knows them all."

Tony made a disbelieving sound. "Right, 'cause that never backfires. This is useless, Steve, he doesn't know shit. This whole conversation is a bluff."

Fury drew a breath to reply, but Steve cut him off. "Nick, what is Project Insight?"

The Director's eye narrowed. "Has Stark been prying into my servers again?"

Tony laughed and responded evenly. "So suspicious, Nicky. No, not recently. And I must say, I'm surprised you would keep anything Top Secret on those servers anyway. The security's full of holes." He said, deliberately mentioning nothing about his currently ongoing attempt to do just that.

"You can try to keep that information to yourself, if you like, Nick," Steve added, "but we intend to find out."

"Fine." Fury stood from his chair. "If it'll get you off my back and out of my office. Come with me, Captain."

Tony raised an eyebrow at Fury. "If you think you're getting rid of me that easily, you can think again, Nick."

Muttering something under his breath, Fury stepped past him, and Tony turned to follow. Steve fell into step with him, and the three of them stepped back into the elevator.

"Insight bay," Fury prompted the elevator, using the voice recognition that neither of them had realised was there.

"Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight." A pleasantly bland female voice replied.

Tony noticed that his name didn't come up, and my my, wasn't that interesting. Was that due to his hacked access, or Fury actually playing ball?

"Director override. Fury, Nicholas J."

"Confirmed," the computer replied, and the car began moving smoothly down.

Tony watched with interest as they descended into a space below ground level and concrete walls took over for the glass that served the above-ground portion. When the elevator doors opened up on an absolutely enormous hangar, he wasn't overly surprised. He knew that SHIELD was building upgraded Helicarriers. They'd called him in to consult on the project. But that they were attached to Project Insight? That was news to him, and he didn't like the implications one bit.

"So tell me, Nick," Tony drawled as Fury began leading them through the hangar, "I'm well aware of what a Helicarrier is, and I'm pretty sure Steve is too. So what do they have to do with Project Insight?"

"Stark, they _are_ Project Insight. Three next-generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites. Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous sub-orbital flight. These new long-range precision guns can eliminate 1,000 hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We're gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."

For his part, Tony couldn't stop staring up at the Helicarriers thinking about just how easy that would be to abuse. Or the disaster that it would be if someone managed to hack in or infiltrate the ships. He couldn't seem to find anything to say, but luckily Steve took up the conversation.

In fact, Steve looked horrified. "Thought the punishment usually came after the crime," he commented.

"Yeah, well," Fury hooked his hands in his belt. "We can't afford to wait that long."

"Who's "we"?" Tony found his voice again, and his tone was harsh. "That's high-handed, even for you."

Fury looked outwardly pleased, but Tony could hear the bitterness in his voice. "After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we're way ahead of the curve."

The pieces fell into place: Fury didn't agree with the order to do this. That was likely why he was going along with their demands rather than stonewalling. He'd protested just enough upstairs to maintain appearances. And _that_ implied that he was being watched. Most likely they all were.

Fucking hell.

Tony tuned out the rest of the conversation, letting Steve and Fury snipe back and forth about compromises and who had had to make worse decisions. He had bigger things to think about.

_j, you get that data?_ he sent via his phone's satellite connection. He had reception, even here, and right now he was damned glad of that.

An SMS pinged silently against his awareness in answer, and Tony used Extremis to read it: _Download progress is currently at 57%. Estimated time remaining is 42 minutes 25 seconds._

_see if you can make that a little faster; use more satellite bandwidth if you need it._

JARVIS' reply read as slightly snippy. _Sir, I am doing all I can. We are limited by the bandwidth your cell phone will support and there are terabytes of data remaining._

Tony refrained from rolling his eyes and tuned back in to the conversation. Maybe he could draw this out a little. "You know, Nick," he interjected in a convenient pause, "when I agreed to consult for you, it was on the understanding that these carriers would be used defensively."

"Really, Stark," Fury growled, "you're going to play that card?"

"And why shouldn't I? I was going to hold back if you were willing to, I don't know, _not_ take ridiculous advantage of the fact that I agreed to give you design input on these. I stopped building weapons for a reason, Nick, and this? This is Nazi level kill-them-before-they-become-an-issue bullshit."

"Oh, you did _not_ just make that comparison!" Fury looked, well, furious. Tony couldn't help the smirk that twisted his features.

Steve snorted. "He's not wrong, Director."

"Invoking the ghost of Nazis past won't help you win this argument, Stark. I suggest you take a step back and think about that before you pursue the point any further."

"You should have thought carefully before you decided to try to slip something like this past me. If I didn't make a fuss now, I would be blowing them up later," Tony pointed out, actually getting angry, now. He could feel the hot ball of emotion gathering somewhere behind his sternum almost like a physical sensation, and he knew he was nearly shaking with the intensity of it. "Fucking hell, Nick. Defensive use only was clearly specified in the agreement we both signed. This is breach of contract, and so help me, I will sue the pants off all of SHIELD if I have to."

"You can try," Fury sneered. "We have good lawyers too, you know. And for the record, it wasn't my idea."

Looking like he wanted to storm off dramatically, Fury tried to stare him down instead. It didn't work. "Nice death stare," Tony quipped, not giving an inch. "You learn that from Coulson?"

"Get in the damn elevator, Stark, before I call security."

Deciding he'd made his point, Tony complied, though he did so at his own pace. "Do that," he told Fury, "and it will be all over the evening news. I personally guarantee it. I'll do a fucking press release."

The elevator rose in dead silence for the first ten seconds, until they were back above ground. Tony took the opportunity to gather his wits. 

Then Tony's phone crackled to life in his pocket.

"Mr. Stark," an eerily electronically distorted voice said. "I must say I am very disappointed in you."

Still pissed, Tony pulled out his phone and stared at it. It was covered in matrix-esque green streaks that outlined a shape vaguely resembling a face. Confusion bled into the mix. "What the fuck?"

"Now, now," the thing replied, "no need to be so crude."

"Who the fuck are you?" Tony demanded. _j, trace this fucker._

He got no reply, and instead the whatever it was laughed. "A nice try, Mr. Stark, and I must say I would like to know how, precisely, you attempted to send that message without using this cellular phone. But it will not work."

Steve turned to Fury. "What the hell is this? Some attempt to keep us from pursuing the point?"

"Fuck no," Fury replied, not taking his eyes off Tony's phone. "That's not my doing. And what was that about Stark not using his phone?"

"Indeed not, Director," the thing replied with an indulgent chuckle, ignoring them, and Tony shuddered, a visceral revulsion shooting through him at the sound of that voice. That laughter was a sound he would be perfectly fine never hearing again. When it continued, Tony had to use nearly every ounce of his control not to throw his phone to the floor and repulsor it with his suitcase suit. "Allow me to introduce myself properly," it said. "My name is Arnim Zola. And you, Mr. Stark, are trespassing on my servers."

"Excuse me?" Tony managed to say, through the tangle of emotions he couldn't quite seem to parse on the fly. " _Your_ servers?"

He was caught somewhere between the bright hot anger he'd felt before, and a revulsion so pure he hadn't felt it in a long time, if ever. All of it layered with a topping of confusion and unease.

"Yes, _my_ servers," the thing claiming to be Zola replied. "Allow me to demonstrate."

The elevator stopped moving abruptly, making Tony stumble. Steve and Fury managed to ride out the sudden change in momentum.

Fury immediately jammed the emergency call button.

That got them another creepy laugh. "You need not bother with that, Director," Zola said, tone smug. "I am in complete control. Just think. What would the world say if this elevator's brakes were to fail?"

Tony glanced over just in time to catch Steve's expression. If he'd been angry before, he looked murderous now. Somehow, though, he kept his temper long enough to speak. "Fury, why the hell do you have a resurrected Nazi in control of your servers?"

"Oh, Captain," Zola purred, "I am not just in control of SHIELD's servers, I am _on_ them."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Tony asked, carefully throttling back the desire to scream at his phone. This was surely one of Steve's nightmares come to life. Hell, it would probably be one of his own, after this. He would have to thoroughly decontaminate his servers now that they'd come into contact with this... thing. Thank fuck JARVIS was automatically backed up every night. "You can't be on the servers. And for that matter, aren't you, like, more than a century old?"

Steve snorted. "That sounds about right," he agreed.

"By your limited definition, I am indeed no longer alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis; the science of the time could not save my body. My mind, however? That was worth saving. Thanks to my position within SHIELD, it was possible to store my memories and personality on 200,000 feet of databanks. Those were later digitised, along with the rest of SHIELD's archives."

"And how did you get into SHIELD?" Tony wanted to know.

Steve turned to Fury and gave him a dirty look. Fury shrugged. Zola continued. "I was invited. After the second World War, SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value under the aegis of Operation Paperclip. They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."

Fury was keeping carefully quiet, so Tony continued. "That being?"

"Come, Mr. Stark," Zola taunted him. "Surely the good Captain has told you his own story meantime. Told you the tale of his sacrifice. Not even that was enough to stop us."

"Dad told me enough," Tony retorted, his grip tightening on his suitcase armour. "HYDRA died with the Red Skull."

"Cut off one head," Zola shot back smugly, "and two more shall take its place."

Tony scoffed. "You're nothing but a bunch of code. I don't think you're in the best position to be spouting ideology."

"Ah, but that's where you are wrong, Mr. Stark. I have the upper hand. Should I decide you need to die, you are at my mercy. You have no recourse to your vaunted armour, and the Captain lacks his trusty shield."

Steve growled. "Not having my shield doesn't make me helpless, Zola," he gritted out.

"Perhaps not," Zola conceded, "but you are no less at my mercy for it."

The elevator dropped a meter before coming to an abrupt halt again, as Zola made his point.

"You know what," Tony said, "I've had enough of this." He opened his phone, removing the back panel deftly, and pulled out the battery. As the screen went dark he looked up. "It won't stop him, but I couldn't stand listening to him anymore."

A beat later the elevator's speakers crackled. "Come now, Mr. Stark," Zola tutted, "surely you know it will take far more than that to stop me."


	6. Chapter 6

"Going down," the elevator announced with a cheery bounce in its electronic voice, and suddenly they were in freefall.

"Shit!" Tony yelped, and reached for the suit with Extremis. Steve took a step toward the corner of the elevator, grabbing for the handrail for balance, and hauled Fury with him. It put them in the most secure corner of the elevator, and Tony had no doubt that that was intentional. The suit folded around him in seconds that felt more like hours, and then he was shooting up through the ceiling safety hatch -- ignoring the way it caught at his armoured shoulders -- and using brute force to stop the elevator, manually setting the emergency brakes using the power of the servos in his gauntlets.

Distantly, Tony felt JARVIS come online around him, and asked the AI to send Thor to the Triskelion with Steve's shield, ASAP.

The car eventually stopped, some ten floors later, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. The lightweight suitcase armour wouldn't have had the necessary thrust to lift an elevator car and two men. Even just one man was pushing it a little. In his heavier armour, he could have.

Steve climbed up after him once the elevator had stopped, simply jumping for the hatch and hauling himself up by its edges. The motion drew Tony's attention to the way his actions had deformed the hatch, as Steve looked him over and asked. "You alright?"

"I'm fine, Cap," Tony informed him. "More concerned about you. I've asked J to send Thor, but I need to get the two of you the fuck out of here, and preferably yesterday. Capische?"

"Secure us an exit, then. I'm staying with the Director for now."

"You haven't got any weapons," Tony tried to protest, "or your uniform."

"Get us an exit, Iron Man," Steve repeated calmly and let himself drop back down to the elevator floor. "We're not helpless."

While Tony thought quickly and weighed options, the elevator doors pinged open, and Steve cursed. The rattle of gunfire shattered the relative quiet. Tony felt the elevator car vibrate under Steve's footsteps and the impacts of the bullets. "Now would be good, Iron Man. Fury, help me close this."

Giving in to the necessity and throwing his concerns about property damage and PR out the metaphorical window, Tony turned and blasted at the shatterproof glass of the elevator shaft with his palm repulsors. Steve wanted an exit? Well, he was going to get one.

It took three blasts with his repulsors to crack the glass, and the next finally broke it. Jumping back through the hatch and forcing himself not to think about falling glass shards, Tony grabbed Steve around the waist. "Come on. I'm getting you out and to ground level."

A glance around the car revealed that they hadn't quite closed the elevator doors, and Fury was crouched behind the opening, taking pot shots at anyone who appeared in his line of fire. "Oh, sure," he grumbled at Tony, "take him first."

"I can only carry one of you at a time, Nick. He'll be better off fighting in the open if it comes to that. You at least have a gun to defend yourself with while I come back. I have a vested interest in getting you out, after that little revelation." Tony didn't bother to hold back his eyeroll as he rattled off the strategic considerations. "You trying to tell me you can't hold them off that long?"

"Boost him up through the hatch," Steve suggested. "It'll make a good chokepoint. Better than the door. But we'd better get going, we're wasting time."

As if to underscore his point, more bullets rattled against the mostly closed elevator doors, leaving behind a line of round dents. One whizzed through the open crack between them, narrowly missing hitting Fury's shoulder, to impact against the far wall of the car.

Steve stepped back out of Tony's arm, and pulled Fury bodily away from the elevator door, ignoring his protests. "Come on, Director," he said, boosting Fury toward the hatch, "up you go."

"I'll thank you not to treat me as though I was five years old," Fury sniped, clearly still pissed off at him, but he went. Probably, Tony suspected, because Fury knew Steve could just use his strength to force compliance if he chose.

Once he was settled, Steve followed, easily jumping up and hauling himself through the hatch this time.

Tony followed, immediately grabbed Steve and flew him down to the grassy lawn surrounding the building. "Thor should be here in under five minutes," he told Steve as they rapidly descended, roughly following the outer surface of the building. "Do me a favor and don't get yourself shot. We'll rendezvous at the hotel at 18.00 hours if we lose contact." That would give them more than three hours and was fairly generous, as time limits went.

"18.00 hours," Steve nodded. "Go get the Director."

As Tony flew back up to duck back through the broken window, JARVIS wordlessly put the map tracking Bucky's location in the lower right corner the HUD. Bucky was on the move, and that was just about the worst possible timing for him to do so. _keep an eye on him j, and let me know if he leaves indian head,_ he requested, and refocused on his current primary objective: hauling Fury's ass out of the fire so that they could try to pry some intel out of him.

The sight that met his eyes as he reached the blown out window, though, made something in him go cold. Fury was kneeling over the elevator hatch, panting for air, and there was a (growing, shit,) puddle of blood around his knees. He looked up when Tony landed next to him, but said nothing.

"Come on, Nick," Tony told him, carefully hauling him to his feet, "we're getting out of here. You need a hospital. Know a good one?"

"St. Elizabeth's," Fury managed to grit out.

"Sir," JARVIS put in as Tony wrapped one arm securely around Fury and launched them out the window, "St. Elizabeth's is a psychiatric hospital[12], perhaps one of the trauma centers might be better suited?"

Tony would have shrugged if he could as he used Extremis to pull up an address and map for the place. "You have a point, J, but Nicky's a paranoid bastard and I wouldn't put it past him to have some secret safehouse hidden in plain sight." As he made the arc away from the Triskelion and headed south across the river, Tony spotted Thor, inbound. "Let the others know where we're heading, would you?"

"Of course, sir."

The big problem with him carrying Nick there was that they were _very_ visible. And someone was sure to track them.

Seconds after he'd touched down, Fury managed to stir himself long enough to rasp out 'code primary assist', at the shocked receptionist. Before Tony could make sense of what was going on, they'd produced an honest-to-god gurney and crash cart, and were rushing away.

While Tony stood there, staring after them and feeling useless, Thor and Steve came hurrying into the foyer, both in full regalia. The sight made Tony wonder dazedly when the fuck Steve had had time to change.

"Iron Man!" Steve called out, seeing the blood streaked all down the front of the armour, "shit! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he replied. "'S not mine."

"If you'd like to get cleaned up, we have plenty of alcohol wipes," a curious orderly offered. "And, if it's not too much trouble, could I get your autographs?"

"You know what," Tony decided, "why not. Bring me a box of wipes and a marker. And if you know someplace nearby where we can get a long black trench coat that screams 'motherfucker', that'd be great."

As if on cue, Clint, Sam, and Natasha walked in, distracting Tony from the orderly's departure. "Bruce is looking for a coffee shop to hole up in for the moment. He felt too exposed in the hotel," Natasha informed them.

The receptionist was still watching them curiously, but neither Natasha nor Clint batted an eye at that. Based on their lack of reaction, Tony assumed that they knew something he didn't about the situation.

Sam, wearing the EXO-7 wings and harness he'd asked for, stepped over to Tony. "What the hell happened to you, buddy?"

"Nothing. I'm fine. The Director took a hit." Tony rolled his eyes.

Clint's eyes narrowed. "You're telling us everything once you're clean and we have some privacy."

"Fine, but first we need to draw attention away from this place. I didn't have the means to be stealthy about coming here," Tony replied. "I need to leave again ASAP, preferably carrying a Fury look-alike. And, Nat, we've got movement of the tracker."

Tony carefully didn't name names. Just in case. She would understand.

Natasha nodded. "Wait here," she said, and disappeared through the same double doors that Fury had been ushered through in such a hurry.

In less than thirty seconds, she was back with a very battered and still-bloody trench coat. Steve eyed it. "That's Fury's isn't it. Won't he be mad you took it?"

Clint huffed, amused. "First we'll need to get through this tangle alive."

Thor nodded. "Who is to be our decoy, then?"

Natasha caught Sam's eyes and raised an eyebrow.

Sam blinked. "Me? Are you serious?"

"Your appearance is closest, and you know how to defend yourself. And you can fly, in the event that the two of you are targeted after you leave here."

Tony nodded. "She's right. Come on flyboy. Put on the coat and let's jet. We've already been here too long."

"We'll be in contact. Go." Clint agreed. The others nodded as well.

With a shrug, Sam took the coat and pulled it on. "Let's do this."

It was a short walk out of the building, then Tony wrapped an arm around Sam's waist, hooking one hand securely into the harness he was wearing, and took off. Sam yelped satisfyingly in surprise, then put his own arms around Tony's neck. "A little warning, next time," he quipped, raising his voice to carry over the roar of the air rushing past them.

Tony laughed, keeping an eye on Bucky's tracker as he took them on a low trajectory, following the river toward the coast, and trying to be obvious about his presence. "I thought you were used to flying."

Tony tuned out Sam's reply; Bucky's tracker had just swerved to follow them, and that was worrying. "Gimme a minute," he requested.

He made another change in trajectory, and that was also compensated for. Bucky was moving in for an intercept of some kind, always keeping to the shortest path connecting them.

Fuck.

What was his target? Was someone sending him after Fury?

The dots connected, and Tony went cold, down to his fingertips. Zola.

Fucking Zola was the key to all of this, computerized Nazi or not. Bucky had said that Zola was the one who'd been the one to fuck with his memories, and Zola had been HYDRA. And HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD.

That logic suggested that it had been the HYDRA elements in SHIELD who'd designed the run of horrible missions, then sold them out and then grabbed Bucky, first chance they'd gotten. Of course, they'd want their assassin back. And it looked like they'd successfully gotten Bucky to knuckle under.

Whether that would last, who knew, but for now it meant they had to treat Bucky as hostile.

God. Fucking. Damn it.

"Sam, be ready to drop the coat and fly. We may have to split up. Widow give you a comm link?"

"No," Sam replied, "no time."

"Great," Tony bit back the string of curses that threatened to spill out of him. "Hang tight for now. I'll see if I can find a reasonably safe rendezvous point. We're being tracked and targeted by the Winter Soldier, and I'm pretty sure he means to go after you first."

Sam made a startled noise. "Wait, what?"

As JARVIS searched, taking his cues from their conversation, Tony's comm link went active and Natasha spoke. "Iron Man, we've got trouble." Her voice actually wobbled, and that stopped Tony in his mental tracks. He gave her his full attention as she continued. With a deep breath, just audible over the comm, she added, "Fury coded. He's dead. Official announcement goes out over SHIELD channels in ten minutes."

Motherfucker.

This was bad.

Tony gave in to the desire to swear and curse, this time, turning the line blue for a solid ten seconds. "We've got more trouble, Widow," he replied. "Our target is tracking me, and I'm pretty sure it's my passenger he wants."

It was Natasha's turn to swear. "Can you catch him and bring him back with you?"

"Depends on whether he recognizes me at all. I'm leaning towards no, given that he's still on an intercept course."

"Drop your passenger then and meet us at the Smithsonian American History Museum, incognito, in fifteen. We'll try to corral him. He'll be less likely to strike in public." Natasha hesitated, then added, "I hope."

Tony huffed. "Let's hope we can keep him busy for that long. And that no one gave him a rifle."

"I'm bringing the team," she replied, and Tony relaxed a little. "Widow, out."

"Copy." Tony turned his attention back to his flight path.

Bucky had managed to close the distance significantly in those thirty seconds Tony had spent talking to Natasha, and that meant Tony had to be very careful. Thank fuck it wasn't far to the museum. He rolled onto his side, putting himself between Bucky and Sam, and put on a burst of speed. "Alright, buddy," he said into his suit's speakers, "looks like we're taking a couple of relics to the museum."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Sam demanded.

"Team's going to meet us at the Smithsonian, and we have to try to lead our tail there." Tony would have given Sam a shit-eating grin if he'd had his faceplate up. "That means I've gotta get us there intact, and get out of the suit. And you've gotta keep that coat on."

"What the hell is going on?"

The dot representing Bucky's tracker swerved to follow them again, and Tony laughed, but there was no real amusement in the sound. "I'll explain once we're on the ground."

\------

In the end, Bucky broke off his pursuit twelve minutes after Natasha's call. Tony had leisurely made his way to the National Mall, and set them down in a reasonably secluded corner before he'd shucked his armour. He hadn't seen the point of attracting more attention than necessary for this. Then three minutes later, Natasha had appeared out of the sparse crowds to fall into step with them. "He's in the wind," was all she said. "The others are waiting at the _Price of Freedom_ exhibit.[13]"

Sam stripped off the coat and threw it over his arm instead, with a slight shudder. "Let's not do that again, okay?"

Tony snickered at him. "No promises. Come on. Let's go inside and talk with the others," he told Sam. Turning to Natasha he added, "I've got some news that you won't like."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Really."

"Once we're all together," Tony replied. "Everyone needs to hear this."

Slipping an arm into his, Natasha made an irritated sound. "Let's go find our resident fossil and his posse, then."

Tony's credit card took care of their entrance fees, and they had to repeatedly refuse offers of guided or private tours of this or that exhibit, but they were eventually free. True to Natasha's word, the rest of the team was scattered throughout the exhibit.

Sam started asking questions about the choice of location as they climbed the stairs to the third floor, so Tony let himself tune them out to think and try to work through the situation. Extremis picked up several cell phone photos of them being taken as they walked, and he peeked at them to make sure Natasha's face was hidden from view, if it wasn't, he made sure that those files were corrupted. The others he ignored.

He quickly scripted a subroutine for that, and set it to run for the next hour. There were sure to be people snapping pictures of them and he would need to ensure that there were no photos of the team, if possible. The less evidence that they were all here, the better. They would still show up on the security footage or anything analogue. He couldn't mess with those without it being supremely obvious.

And, for that matter, after the debacle at the Triskelion twenty minutes ago, being seen in public enjoying something like a museum could only be good press, and help counteract any claims HYDRA tried to make about him attacking the building. In fact, he was probably going to get an angry call from Rhodey about that the moment he turned his phone back on.

Which... wasn't happening anytime soon. He wasn't turning his phone back on until he had a new SIM card in it, and he'd checked on JARVIS properly. It would have to wait until he had the time to get physically back to the Tower to initiate a deep sector-by-sector scan of his servers, and then overwrite them with a recent backup.

As to their escape from the grounds... Well. He'd just have to hope for now that there weren't any photos of him carrying Fury. That little escapade had the potential to explode in their faces, politically, unless they managed to do something about HYDRA and Insight, pronto.

A feat that was made exponentially more difficult by Fury's death.

Their only saving grace, at this point, was Tony's own insider knowledge on the way the Insight 'carriers were set up to communicate with one another and SHIELD's satellites. Sure, sharing that knowledge was technically as big a breach of contract as Nick had made in turning them into weapons, but as far as Tony was concerned, that just evened the score.

He set the thoughts aside when they entered the exhibit proper, and he spotted Thor immediately inside the entrance, apparently fascinated by the plaques mounted over the display of the chairs used at Appomattox. He turned, though, hearing Sam's voice, and grinned broadly at them. "Ah, my friends! I am glad to see you hale."

Thor's exclamation, of course, got the rest of the team's attention, and it wasn't long before they'd clustered together in a corner of the exhibit away from most of the foot traffic.

"Right," Tony took charge of the conversation, his voice low, "in the interests of saving time, I'll start. Remember that conversation we had not that long ago with Bucky? About who had him?" Tony caught Steve's eyes and knew he wouldn't have to elaborate.

Steve's expression twisted, and he growled under his breath. "Zola?"

Bruce put a hand on Steve's shoulder, offering comfort if he wanted it. Tony nodded, and Clint swore quietly. 

After a beat, Tony went on. "Bucky told us that Zola was the one who fucked with his memories, the first time. As we all know Zola was HYDRA. What we didn't know was that Zola apparently got himself preserved in code somehow, and that HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD."

Natasha looked like she was biting back black anger. "So you're saying that HYDRA effectively owns SHIELD, and sold us out."

Steve looked like he wanted to put his fist through a wall. "And then they grabbed Bucky back, first chance they got."

Tony nodded. "Well, yeah. They wanted their wind-up assassin back. And it looks like they succeeded. Bucky was tracking me the whole time I was in the air with Sam, and moving like a man on a mission. I really hope it doesn't last, but for now it means we've gotta treat Bucky as hostile."

Natasha made a soft pained sound. Clint was the one to ask. "You think he wouldn't recognise you as his handler? Like he did the first time you met?"

"No idea." Tony made a face and sighed. "It's worth a try, but I don't want it to end in him shooting me and then feeling obscenely guilty about it later. I'd be fine, but you can be damn sure that would upset him for months, if not longer."

There was a tense silence.

Eventually Thor broke it. "There must be a way to get our compatriot back."

"First, we need to worry about Project Insight," Tony shook his head. "If my suspicions are correct, Bucky will show up for that fight anyway."

Steve visibly clamped down on his feelings and forced himself to set them aside. "Speaking of which. We're going to need every scrap of knowledge you have on those 'carriers, if we're going to pull this off. We don't have nearly enough resources to pull this off without it. And even then, it'll be one big job."

Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his eyes closed and head tipped back slightly. "That's a briefing that'll have to happen somewhere less public."

Clint groaned. "Like where? All the SHIELD safehouses in a twenty mile radius would theoretically work, but they're all compromised, now."

"You guys are welcome to come to my place."

Steve raised an eyebrow at Sam. "You sure about that? It might end up literally going up in flames."

Sam shrugged. "I've thrown in my lot with y'all, and I'm only renting the place."

"Okay," Tony told him. "Go home, then. Now. Put any important documents and valuables in a box, and we'll ship it to my Tower, to Pepper, insured. I like to hedge my bets."

Clint added his support to the idea. "It's a smart move. I'd do it."

Thor sighed. "That is settled. Now, what shall we do about our evening meal?"

"We draw too much attention as a group," Bruce put in, breaking his silence.

"Come on, Point Break," Tony said, clapping his hand onto Thor's shoulder and turning him away from the group with a nod, "I'll show you one of the best all-you-can-eat places I've found in this city."

Thor grinned broadly. "Certainly! Lead on."

"We'll meet you at the new guy's place," Tony threw over his shoulder. "Oh, and my phone's out of commission for the foreseeable future. If you need us, call Thor."

\------

[12] I'm including a link to the hospital's [website](http://stelizabethseast.com/) for those interested, but this isn't crucial to the story itself. Click here to return to text.

[13] The Smithsonian exhibit referenced in Cap 2 (during the scenes where you see the Howling Commandoes gear on dummies) is real, and you can find more detail on it at the [official website](http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/price-of-freedom). I thought that was a neat little easter egg for them to include in the film when I found out about it. Click here to return to text.


	7. Chapter 7

The team showed up at Sam's place in ones and twos. Tony got the address by suiting up and using the armour's interface to contact Natasha. The trip was short enough that he and Thor didn't bother with a cab, and just flew the few blocks. 

When they arrived, Steve and Natasha were already there, sitting comfortably in Sam's living room. Sam himself was in the kitchen and taping closed a flat-rate box. It had been Natasha who stood and walked over to open the door for them. She led them through the house to the living room. Thor closed and locked the door behind them.

"We gave Sam the address for the private portion of the Tower," Natasha told him, in place of a greeting.

Tony made an amused sound, but rolled with the directness of the statement. Natasha had never been the type to waste words, and tended to assume he knew she was happy to see him. They'd worked that little quirk in their relationship out long ago. "Good. Got the postage dealt with?"

"We do." Natasha held out a slender hand, and Tony wasn't about to refuse the implied request. He settled next to her on the sofa, and tucking her against his side.

Steve raised an eyebrow at him, and Tony shrugged with his free shoulder; he could easily guess the question that went unasked. "It'll come out at some point. I'm not about to make a fuss about it if Natasha's fine with him knowing," he told Steve.

Thor laughed. "You make a fair point, Man of Iron," he rumbled, picking out the comfortable-looking recliner opposite the sofa.

"The others on their way?" Tony asked, changing the subject.

"Dr. Banner and Clint should be here in the next few minutes," Steve replied. 

Tony took a closer look at him, and couldn't help but think that Steve looked like he was about to crumple, like a submarine that had ventured too far beyond its crush depth. The strain of the situation showed in the tension at the corners of his eyes and the set of his shoulders. And Tony would happily have offered him whatever comfort he wanted, but there was neither time nor privacy. Steve would just have to tough this out as best he could.

Making a snap decision, Tony had to restrain himself from nodding in satisfaction; he was taking the whole team out of town after this was over. There was the house in the Bahamas, just waiting for them, and there was no doubt in Tony's mind that they would need some R&R, coming out the other side of this.

Before he could get the words out, Sam's doorbell rang again. This time Steve stood to answer it, and when he returned, it was with their two missing members. Their arrival drew Sam back out of the kitchen, and this time he was carrying a tray of glasses, bottles of water and orange juice, and assorted snacks. Tony couldn't help making a face at how wholesome and healthy their new member was. He was a match for Steve, in that.

Clint snickered at him. "Suck it up and eat the snacks, Stark," he teased.

"It's not the snacks that I object to. It's having another health nut on the team." Tony shot back.

Natasha gave him an arch look. "You spend enough time in your workshop doing the equivalent of lifting weights for your metalworking. You can't throw stones."

Sam laughed outright at them. "Now that y'all have got that out of your systems," he put in, "what's the plan? I assume we have one."

Tony ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. "Kind of? We don't have a lot of time, here. Now that we know about it, we can bet that Insight will launch within the next 24 hours. There are a few hurdles, though, before we can even get to the 'carriers."

Sam gave him a skeptical look. "'Carriers? As in, aircraft carriers?" he asked. "We're attacking multiple aircraft carriers?"

Steve shook his head. "Helicarriers. SHIELD's pride and joy. No other branch has them."

"Well, shit." Sam scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Are y'all's missions always this crazy?"

"Pretty much," Clint nodded. "We won't think less of you if you want out."

"This level of insanity is kind of our speciality," Bruce added.

"At this point, I kind of want to stay in, just to see how in the hell y'all are going to pull this off," Sam shot back. "I made it through pararescue training, and served actively. I'm no unblooded private."

Thor caught Sam's eyes. "This will still be the most difficult fight you have ever taken on, Samuel," he said, slowly, "and none of us wish to see you hurt or slain for our cause."

Sam stood up, looking at them all, one by one. "I swore an oath to serve and protect this country, and I meant it."

Definitely a match for Steve. Tony shook his head. "Okay, sit down, then, flyboy. Save your fight for the HYDRA assholes who deserve it."

"Yeah, okay, but you'd better explain," Sam shot back.

Tony drew a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. Sam would need the whole story. "Right. Explaining. SHIELD called me in to design them upgrades for their helicarrier. The one they were using when the Chitauri tried to invade New York two years ago," he said. "I agreed, on the condition that they be used for defensive purposes, since, you know, I stopped building weapons. SHIELD's Director agreed, but was apparently overruled later by his COs, and that led to Project Insight."

"You mentioned that before." Sam was looking graver with every word. "What is it?"

"Well, that's what we've been chasing after. Along with one of our teammates. I'll get to that after." Tony wanted to stand and pace, but he also didn't want to let go of Natasha. Shifting restlessly, he went on. "Anyway. Project Insight. Steve and I found out this morning that SHIELD's built three second gen helicarriers, and they're going to be launched soon, with the intent to eliminate terrorists and criminals before they even get to the point of committing any large scale atrocities. Steve objected on moral and ethical grounds. I objected on legal grounds. We got attacked by rogue elements in SHIELD who didn't want us stopping Insight from launching."

"Rogue elements?" Sam prompted, listening intently.

"HYDRA." Steve answered, his own expression stern and holding more than a hint of anger. 

Sam gave him a questioning look. "Your old nemesis? How the hell did they pull that off? I thought they were gone." 

"We all did," Clint put in.

"So the upshot," Tony took the thread back up, "is that we have to get aboard those helicarriers and disable their targeting algorithms."

"How do you plan to do that?" Bruce asked, now that they were coming to the part of the plan that the team hadn't heard before.

"Each carrier has a console near the center of the ship, just inside the outer hull. It contains a miniaturised server with blades for things like navigation, steering, and so on. I can create new targeting blades that we can use to replace the ones that are in there. They _all_ have to be swapped out, because if even one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die. The problem will be getting to the servers on each carrier; there are a series of biometric locks between them and the outside world. I had access, as a contractor and designer on the project, but that's probably been revoked, meantime. And the Director would have had access, but he's dead."

"Can't you get in the system remotely and get us access?" Bruce wanted to know.

Tony groaned. "Oh, sure. I know that system inside and out. The problem is that there's a computerized Nazi in the system and he'll probably notice if I do that."

"A _what_?" Sam exclaimed.

"A computerized Nazi," Tony repeated.

"That's what I thought you said." Sam was looking at him like he was crazy.

"I had a similar reaction," Tony reassured him. "But HYDRA apparently put Arnim Zola's brain on tape and uploaded him to SHIELD's servers. It wouldn't surprise me if he had his electronic fingers deep in this pie."

Natasha huffed. "You're probably right."

"How much time would we have if you tried that?" Steve asked.

"On the order of a few seconds to a minute, probably. There's plenty of computing power aboard, and more at SHIELD HQ." Tony scowled. "Their reaction time would be solely limited by how long it takes Zola to notice the hack, and the signal to travel."

Clint and Natasha exchanged a look. "And if we could get an insider to let us in?" Clint suggested.

Steve gave him a sharp look. "Do you know where we can find one?"

"That would work far better than a hack," Tony nodded, "but it would only get us access to one carrier before we're noticed. Think you can find us three authorized people?"

Natasha shrugged. "If Tony can reactivate his access right before he enters, that's one. We can locate at least one more. Subdirector Hill should have access. She was always more loyal to Fury than the WSC, even when she disagreed with his methods." 

Clint grinned and added. "Coulson should have an access code of his own. He mentioned that Fury wanted to put him in charge of one of them."

Thor chuckled, and it was an almost ominous sound, like a rumble of summer thunder underlaid by hail. "Where are they now?"

"Coulson is at the Triskelion," Natasha replied, "and Hill should be, as well. We should be able to contact them tonight to arrange a private meeting."

"In any case," Tony brought the conversation back around to the infiltration they were planning, "we won't have a lot of time once we're on board, either. The carriers' weapons systems only activate above 5,000 feet of altitude, and it only takes about six minutes for them to get that high in the sky. So once we're in, we'll have to act fast."

Steve considered that for a moment. "Tony and me; Coulson, Bruce and Thor; Hill, Natasha and Sam," he decided. "That leaves Clint open to do what he does best and keep an eye on the big picture for us."

"Rhodey should be coming to join us, too." Tony pointed out.

"War Machine can back up Clint," Natasha replied. "Get him out of trouble if he gets overrun, or takes a hit."

"Speaking of whom," Clint put in, giving Tony a look that spoke volumes, "don't you think it's time to call your bestie, Tony?"

With a wince, Tony gave in. "Probably. Who's willing to let me use their cell? Mine's potentially compromised."

He peeled himself away from Natasha's side slowly and somewhat reluctantly, not wanting to give up her comforting presence, and waited for a reply. No one moved for a moment, then Sam shrugged. "I've got a landline you can use, if you're, you know, willing to use stone age tech."

Tony actually considered it. "I would, but they're very easy to tap. Not that cell phones are much better, but I can tell if I'm being spied on, that way."

Natasha held out her hand, a small brick phone in her hand. Obviously a burner phone. She had a custom StarkPhone for her normal use, triple encrypted and otherwise as secure as Tony could make it. But the SIM card could still theoretically be traced and triangulated. There was a number already punched in, and Tony recognised the number that would connect him to the War Machine armour. "If he's coming," she said, "he'll be en route by now."

"You're terrifying," he told her, and got a smug smirk.

"And you love it," she shot back.

Sam was looking back and forth between them, his eyes narrowed, and eventually gave up with a shrug. "You know what, I don't even want to know. I'll interrogate you later."

Clint laughed outright. "You can try," he told Sam. "Nat is just about the best interrogator ever trained, and Tony's spent his life at the center of a media storm."

"Go call Rhodes," Natasha prompted him.

Tony held up his free hand in mock surrender and pressed 'dial'.

Rhodey picked up on the second ring. "Romanov," he greeted, raising his voice just slightly to carry over the rushing sound of air as he flew. "Fucking finally. I was beginning to wonder when you'd call."

"Hate to disappoint you buddy," Tony grinned, amused despite the situation, "but I'm not a redhead."

"Tony! What the hell is going on?" Rhodey sounded upset as usual. "SHIELD is refusing to answer my calls on the basis that you've gone rogue, and the brass only let me come out here on the condition that I liaise with SHIELD for them. And I keep getting some bullshit message about your cell being disconnected."

"That's a long story, Rhodey. Come join us here and we'll tell you all about it."

"Where is 'here'?"

"We're holed up with a friend for now. Leave your armour at my usual hotel or whatever. Just not at SHIELD or Indian Head. Then call this number back for the address. You'll need to get over here, quietly." Tony told him.

Rhodey whistled, impressed by the level of secrecy _Tony_ was willing to use. "What the hell have you gotten your ass mixed up in now?"

"Can't tell you over the phone."

"Fine. ETA is about 20 minutes from mark. I'll call you when I get in."

In the end it took Rhodey thirty minutes to call back. Natasha picked up the phone and gave him the address, and instructions to take the subway.

When Rhodey had shown up, Natasha had let him in, and ushered him through to the living room. Rhodey had barely had time to greet them before Sam had proceeded to get more star-struck meeting _Rhodey_ than the Avengers. And Tony'd had to swallow back a laugh, watching as Rhodey floundered, unused to that kind of attention. As liaison to Stark Industries, and likewise as a staff officer for the USAF, he was normally treated more like an average Joe by most people when he wasn't in uniform. And like furniture when he was.

So the mere concept that he was worth being fussed over by someone he didn't know had been enough to fluster Rhodey, give how rarely it happened. Tony'd had to bite back a snicker, watching his friend's reaction. Having it actually happening to him had been enough to rob Rhodey of words for about thirty long seconds. Eventually, though, he'd managed to find a few of the stock phrases he used for media events and apply them, though he was careful not to just let himself ramble on autopilot like Tony sometimes did. 

Natasha took pity on Rhodey and interceded after he'd managed to string together a few sentences, reminding Sam that there was take-out. Sam blinked, then pounced on the idea, turning his enthusiasm toward lavishing attention on Rhodey as their host.

"Tony," he asked as Sam vanished into the kitchen, "how in the world did you meet this guy?"

"Ask Clint or Natasha. They introduced him to us." Tony grinned. "How's it feel to be a celebrity?"

" _Weird._ "

Sam reappeared in time to overhear the exchange, and laughed. "As weird as it is for me to have the Avengers and War Machine in my living room, planning one of the biggest ops in their history?"

"Hm, speaking of." Rhodey turned to Steve. "Wanna fill me in?"

They brought Rhodey up to speed as they fed him, and he gratefully finished off the carton of lo mein they'd handed him. Without interrupting Steve's explanation, Clint handed Rhodey another. The others politely paid some attention as Steve rehashed what they knew so far, but Tony tuned it out in favor of 'borrowing' Rhodey's cell and testing a few of his more legitimate modes of access to SHIELD's servers -- and the helicarriers in particular -- via Extremis.

He came up with nothing, and tuned back in to the conversation in time to catch the specifics of their approach and timing.

"Our current plan," Steve was saying, "calls for a pre-dawn infiltration, with the objective of replacing the targeting blades on each of the three helicarriers. They can't be allowed to launch as is or millions of innocent people will die."

Rhodey looked grim. "Do you have admissible proof of any of this?" he asked. "Not that I don't believe you, but you'll have to have something to show the world to justify what you're about to do. Otherwise you'll all be condemned as vigilantes and possibly enemies of the state."

Tony made a face. "Unfortunately, most of said evidence is on SHIELD's servers. My cell was hacked by that computerised Nazi, but even if I can prove it, that's not nearly enough to justify running an op like this in the eyes of someone who has no idea who Zola is. Or what he can do."

Natasha put in, "if we fail, whether we have proof won't matter."

When no one replied to her statement, that line of conversation died. After a long pause, Steve picked up the conversation, steering them back onto the topic of the mission they were planning. "So. Our first priority is to stop the launch. Second is to get copies of the data on SHIELD's servers. Tony, Natasha," he caught their eyes one at a time as he spoke. "If possible, I'd like you to split off from the main group and go after those servers, once your respective teams have replaced the targeting blades," he said, his expression serious and bordering on solemn.

"That would leave you on carrier Alpha alone, the way the teams are structured," Natasha pointed out.

Tony nodded. "You'd better tell me here and now that you'll least call in Rhodey to help you, once I leave, _and you'd better mean it_. Or I'm not going after those servers. Taking a helicarrier on, solo, is a suicide mission. Even for someone like you. I'd know, seeing as I did pretty much the whole re-design for them."

Rhodey picked that moment to step up to Tony's shoulder, posture aggressive, and say, "for once Tony's talking sense. If you don't listen to him, you've got the strategic sense of a rock."

Steve stared them down for a few seconds that seemed to stretch, then gave in. His head fell forward slightly, and he grumbled something Tony suspected was distinctly uncomplimentary under his breath. "Fine," he acknowledged. "As long as no one else is in trouble or in need of an evac."

Rhodey nodded. "Fine. But if I feel your ass is in more trouble than you can handle, I'm hauling you out of there. If only because Tony and Agent Romanov would never let me hear the end of it."

Shortly afterwards, Tony was suiting up and flying back to the Tower as quickly as he could manage; he needed to be back in New York, pronto. The materials and tools he needed were there, and he had a lot to do if he was going to have the new targeting blades ready in time. Worse, he had only a few hours to do it in. Their mission was planned for the pre-dawn hour of 05.30 the following morning, and it was already almost 21.00 hours.

Not long after he'd taken to the air, JARVIS alerted him of a text message from Pepper that he'd missed during their discussion. He brought it up on the HUD as he flew. _Tony,_ it read, _I'm at the Malibu house. Everything is running smoothly for now. Come home in one piece. I love you._

Once he got back to the Tower, time passed in a blur, his work only registering as a series of milestones. Spending the first hour and a half checking on JARVIS. Sorting through the data they'd managed to retrieve before Zola cut off their access. Working on the replacement targeting blades. Carefully, very carefully, checking his access to the helicarriers' systems.

Before they'd known about Zola's existence, the asshat had been forced to leave Tony's access alone or give his presence away by revoking it. Now that Zola had shown himself, all bets were officially off.

What he found, predictably, was a series of plugged holes and backdoors. All of his usual ways in had been meticulously closed and metaphorically boarded up. Zola had clearly had time to learn, and taken advantage of it.

But, Tony grinned and cracked his knuckles, he had something his opponent didn't; he had Extremis, and an in-depth knowledge of the helicarriers' systems to supplement his ability to code and his intellect.

It took almost all the time he had left for him to find a way to get in. It was a somewhat circuitous workaround, and he didn't dare test it properly, because of the risk of giving the tactic away to his opponent, but most importantly, it _worked_. Both in his imagination and JARVIS' simulations -- which were based on Tony's experiences that morning and the schematics they had on file.

It didn't -- couldn't -- account for any changes Zola might have made to the code structure itself, but Tony was fairly confident that he could deal with that on the fly if necessary. Given that he had access to JARVIS' processing power and extremis' ability to interface with the helicarrier, it probably wouldn't be too much to ask.

Probably.

Tony bit back a wince as he suited up to head back to DC with the newly fabricated and tested targeting blades. This was likely to get hairy, and he could only hope like hell that this wouldn't end in any horrible injuries. And they still had to get Bucky back.

There was a really damn good chance that HYDRA would send Bucky at them when they attacked the helicarriers, and all of them knew it, even if they weren't talking about it.

Tony could only hope that Bucky ended up going up against someone who could handle him. Thor would be a good choice from his perspective. Though probably not from Bucky's. Assuming he had enough presence of mind to choose who to take on.

There was no doubt in Tony's mind that if HYDRA was picking the targets, they'd go for him or Steve. If Bucky was... he'd probably go after Clint or Nat, as the members of the team that were most vulnerable to ranged attacks.

But they'd have to wait that out and see what developed.

And, ultimately, that was what bothered Tony the most about it.


End file.
